Whole New You
by etaknosnhoj
Summary: AU: Sequel to Lies My Lover Told Me. After Buffy moves to England to be with Spike, she finds that his world is vastly different from her own
1. Prologue

            Editorial note: Title borrowed from Shawn Colvin.  All characters created by Joss Whedon, etc, etc.

This fic is a direct sequel to Lies My Lover Told Me ***this contains spoilers for that fic***, in which Buffy takes a holiday in England and finds that her life is in danger from the evil Angelus group.  Her mother sends the mysterious Spike to protect Buffy, they fall for each other in a big way but Buffy leaves and comes home to Sunnydale when she believes that Spike has betrayed her.  Eventually he comes back to her, the misunderstanding is rectified, and there are hugs and kisses all round.  Aww, bless.

            That was last night.  This is this morning...

Prologue

            Joyce Summers peered at her reflection and scowled at the wrinkles around her eyes.  It was all Buffy's fault: finding out she was going to be a grandmother had sent overnight wrinkles to Joyce's face.  Every morning she surreptitiously pulled out grey hairs.  Any more and she'd be bald.

            Not that she could begrudge Buffy anything: her daughter was working so hard at the moment, taking that course so she could hopefully get herself a decent job and support the baby.  Joyce only wished Buffy would give up this stupid stubborn refusal to contact the father.  It was ridiculous.  He had a right to know, and the baby would need a father.  Buffy was one of the strongest people Joyce knew, but was she strong enough to be a single parent for the rest of her life?

            No, it just wasn't good enough.  Joyce's dreams of fat grandchildren had always come hot on the tail of a pair of beautiful weddings.  A rich, handsome man for Dawn and a strong, clever one for Buffy.

            Spike was strong, and clever, even if he was a bit odd.  Joyce's conversations with her old friend Giles had left her in no doubt that Spike had very strong feelings for Buffy.  But Buffy refused to speak to him.

            Well, if she was going to be a parent then she'd quickly learn that sometimes a parent has to do what's best for her child, even if that child doesn't want it.  Like measles shots.  Eating cabbage.  Exams.  Calling Spike.

            Joyce nodded decisively at her reflection, and her reflection nodded back.  She'd call Giles as soon as she got to the gallery and ask him for a contact for Spike.  And then she'd tell Spike to get his British ass over here and see Buffy.  Once they saw each other, it would all be resolved, she was sure.

            Dammit.  If she wanted to be decisive she really needed some of her new lash-building mascara.  Now where the hell was it?

            She knocked on Dawn's door.  "Are you nearly ready, honey?"

            "Yeah, just give me five minutes."

            "Have you seen that mascara I bought the other day?"

            "Uh, I think Buffy has it," Dawn said, and Joyce was sure she heard a slight snigger in her daughter's voice.

            "Right," Joyce said, and crossed the hall to Buffy's room.  She tapped on the door and opened it.  "Buffy, do you have that - penis!"

            Buffy's eyes slammed open in horror and she stared at her mother, who was staring back, her eyes rooted on Spike.  He quickly pulled the covers over himself and offered a weak smile.

            "Joyce - Mrs Summers..."

            "I, er, I'll just," Joyce was turning pink and backing away, "I'll just be, er downstairs..."

            She pulled the door securely shut behind her and ran away.

            Buffy buried her head in Spike's shoulder.  "Oh God, oh God," she wailed.  "I can't believe she saw that!"

            Spike was laughing.  "Come on, love, it was sort of funny..."

            Buffy looked up at him.  Her face was as pink as her mother's had been.  "Sort of funny?  Spike, we were going to be all adult and polite about this, and she, she was not supposed to see-"

            "Oh, she's a grown-up too, Buffy."  He stroked back her hair.  "Look.  We'll go downstairs and talk to her and it'll all be fine.  Your mum's very open-minded."

            "Not that open-minded," Buffy grumbled as she shoved back the covers and cranked herself out of bed, but Spike grabbed her arm and pulled her back to face him.  He ran his hand over her big pregnant belly in some awe, and looked up at her with eyes full of disbelief and love.

            "I can't believe-" he began, unable to find the right words.  "You're amazing..."

            She smiled and ran her hand over his.  "You're pretty unbelievable yourself," she replied, and reached for her nightgown.

            Spike pulled on his jeans and shirt and kissed Buffy's neck as she tied her gown over her big bump.

            "Ready to face the music?"

            Buffy nodded and sought out his hand as he opened the door.  They met Dawn in the hallway, grinning slightly slyly.

            "Hey, you guys," she beamed.  "Did you see Mom?"

            "Well, she saw us," Buffy said.  "You didn't tell her, did you, Dawn?"

            "No.  Why would I do that?" Dawn said, but she was grinning just a little too knowingly for Buffy's liking.

            Spike insisted on helping Buffy down the stairs, although she assured him she'd been managing it perfectly well for months.  His concern for her was adorable, she thought.  Although it could get annoying if she was never allowed to walk anywhere without help.  She hoped he'd let her visit the bathroom by herself.

            Delicious cooking smells came from the kitchen and Buffy gripped Spike's hand a little tighter as they walked through and found Joyce manically cooking pancake after pancake.

            "Are you two hungry?"

            "Uh, I could eat," Buffy said.

            "Great!  I made you some tea, Buffy, but it's the last of your special stuff."

            "Special stuff?" Spike enquired, as Buffy took a mug full of greenish liquid from her mother.

            "Anya got it for me," Buffy explained.  "She has an alternative health store.  It has herbs to stop my ankles swelling and herbs to keep my blood pressure down and herbs to stop the herbs tasting icky... Want some?"

            Spike took a sniff and hurriedly shook his head.  "No.  Thanks.  You shouldn't be wasting it."

            "Wuss."

            Spike rolled his eyes at her but refrained from saying anything else on the subject.  Joyce, still flitting around the kitchen like a giant hummingbird, barely looked at Spike as she asked, "Would you like some tea?  I have some English, uh, Earl Grey."

            Spike, who was more of a coffee person, nodded and smiled.  "That sounds great.  Thanks, Mrs Summers."

            He watched her carefully.  Still avoiding eye contact, she said, "No, call me Joyce.  After all, you are going to be, er, going to..."

            "Going to be your son-in-law," Spike said gently, and added when Joyce went very still, "with your blessing."

            Buffy looked nervously up at Spike.  He put his arm around her shoulders and held her back against him as Joyce slowly put down the teapot and turned to face them.

            "You're-"

            "Gonna get married," Buffy said.  "Surprise!"

            Joyce felt for the table and chair and sat down.

            "One of these days I'm going to die of a heart attack," she said.  "Spike - William-"

            "Spike," Spike said firmly.

            "When did you even get here?"

            "Last night.  Thought it was time I mended a few things.  Didn't know Buffy was, er..."

            "Big surprise for everyone," Buffy said wryly.  "Mom?  Are you okay?"

            Joyce nodded weakly.  "I think I need that tea."

            Buffy moved to make it, but Spike got there first and pushed her gently towards her mother.

            "Mom," Buffy sat down and touched her mother's hand.  "Look, I know it's a shock, but we worked everything out.  I know I kept saying I didn't want Spike to know and he was evil, blah blah blah-"

            "Evil?" Spike raised an eyebrow.

            "But I was just being stupid.  We love each other.  We're going to get married."

            Joyce's head was down and her shoulders were shaking.  Buffy cast a horrified look at Spike.  "Mom?  Are you crying?  Hey, look, it's not that bad, I mean, we'll still be here all the time, and you'll see the baby, and, and it'll work out so much better this way, because Spike'll be here too and-"

            Joyce lifted her head.  "I'm not crying, Buffy."

            "You're laughing?" Buffy said incredulously.

            "I was going to call Spike today.  I wanted you two to get back together."

            "Duh," Dawn said from the doorway, "she's only been going on about it for months.  Mom, we need to go, or I'm gonna be late for school."

            "Never thought I'd hear you say that," Joyce said, standing up.  "I'll see you two later?"

            Buffy nodded and hugged her mother, and then Joyce hugged Spike and Buffy laughed at his surprised expression.

            "Bye, Mom.  Bye Dawn.  Mom, let go of Spike."

            Blushing, her mother withdrew, and she and Dawn left the house.  Spike drew Buffy to him and kissed her, and she stretched her arms around him happily, and then she pulled back from him, wincing.

            "What?"

            She took his hand and put it on her belly.  "It's kicking."

            Spike felt it, and Buffy watched a smile come over his face.  "Got a right little Beckham in there, love."

            "Does it have to be a boy to kick?"

            "No, could be like that Keira Knightly girl.  She could kick.  And she was hot."

            "Hey, less of the 'other women are hot' talk."

            Spike ran his finger along her lips.  "Not as hot as you," he said.  "No one is.  Now come on, breakfast, before it goes cold."  He started piling them onto a plate for her.

            "I don't think I can eat all those pancakes," Buffy eyed the stack doubtfully.

            "Come on.  Bit of maple syrup and you'll - you don't like maple syrup?"

            Buffy shook her head, making a face.  "Well, yes, I love it, but I can't eat it right now."  She reached into a cupboard and took out a bottle of soy sauce and poured it all over her pancakes.

            Spike went pale.

            "You think this is gross, it's a good job you weren't here when I had morning sickness," Buffy told him, tucking in.  "I know it's disgusting and I cannot believe I'm actually eating this, but I guess that's hormones for you."

            Spike pushed his plate away.  "Suddenly I'm less hungry."

            He helped her dress and was so distressed at the state of her wardrobe of mostly second-hand maternity clothes, that he insisted on taking her shopping.

            "Well, only if you stop twisting my arm," Buffy said.  She felt at his forehead.  "Seriously, taking me shopping?  Are you sure you're alright?"

            "I'm not having my fiancée wearing second-hand rags," Spike said firmly.  "And you need some more of that tea.  And you have to help me choose a ring."

            "What for?"

            "For you, you silly bint.  An engagement ring?"

            All Buffy's tiredness seemed to vanish as she set off in Spike's borrowed car.  For months she'd been not just physically exhausted from carrying the baby around, but emotionally drained, too.  For the rest of her life she'd be a mother, a single mother.  Part of her had wanted to contact Spike, but her pride hadn't let her.  If his sisters hadn't made him come around and see her, then he'd never have known.

            "This is it," she pointed out of the window at an alternative health store.

            "Anya has a health food shop?"

            "Yeah.  She's really good at it.  She can give all kinds of advice about diets and exercise and what to use on all kinds of stuff, like Dawn had this skin thing and Anya got her some cream for it and it cleared up in about a week.  And when Mom started getting these headaches, Anya found her some tea that just stopped them."

            "This stuff really works?" Spike looked doubtful.

            "Does for me."  Buffy pushed open the door and a bell tinkled.  Anya was behind the counter, her hair longer and blonder than it had been last time Spike saw her.  But then last time Spike had seen her they'd been chained in a cellar being tortured...

            She stared at Spike.

            "Buffy, I know you miss him but did you need to go out and find a Spike clone?  And isn't it the height of bad taste to date when you're pregnant?"

            Buffy laughed.  "Anya, this _is_ Spike."

            Anya stared a bit more.

            "William the Bloody?"

            Buffy raised her eyebrows at him.

            "It's just a nickname," he said.  "Where did you even hear that?"

            "In the cellar," Anya said, and added to Buffy, "he was trying to distract me from the fact that he was naked."

            "I do not need to hear this," Buffy held up her hands.

            "Not naked on purpose, love, I had just been kidnapped, if you recall?"

            "Anya, do you have any more of that tea blend for me?" Buffy asked loudly.

            The door at the back of the shop opened as Anya was weighing out the tea, and Xander came in, wearing a tool belt.  "Hey Buff... and Spike... Buffy, did you know Spike is standing right there?"

            Buffy nodded and beamed and put her arm around Spike's waist.  "I want you guys to be the first to know."

            "Well, second, really, after your mum and Dawn," Spike looked at her.

            "Shut up, honey.  We're getting married!"

            Anya squealed and ran over to hug them both.  Xander was more reticent.

            "Married?  Since when?"

            "Last night.  Spike came over and we talked everything out, and we're going to get married.  In England, probably."

            "After the baby's born?"

            "No, before.  You see, Spike needs a legitimate heir, so we need to be married before it's born."

            "Heir?" Anya asked.  "Why, is he secretly the king?"

            She laughed, and Xander attempted a smile, but it faded when Spike grinned and said, "No, but my dad is an earl.  It's not a big thing, doesn't mean anything really, but I have to carry the family line on."

            "So you're marrying Buffy to get a legitimate heir?" Xander asked.

            "No," Buffy said, but she looked slightly uncertain.

            "No," Spike said, not looking amused.  "I'm marrying Buffy because I love her.  I'm marrying her soon because of the baby."

            "But you'll be going to England soon?" Anya asked.  "Because pretty soon you won't be able to fly."

            Buffy frowned.  "That's true.  Spike, should we just wait, and maybe get married later?  Or do it here?"

            "You don't want to go to England?"

            "Well, yes, I mean I do, and I want to meet your family and - oh, did you guys know Harmony Kendall is Spike's sister?"

            Xander shook his head.  "Valley girl Harmony?"

            "Half-sister," Spike said.  "My mum died when I was little, and my dad remarried.  Harm's lived over here a lot.  She puts on the English when it suits her."

            "She comes in here looking for wicca remedies," Anya shook her head.  "She likes tasteless unicorns."

            "Yep, that's Harm," Spike rolled his eyes.  "Okay.  Well, Buffy and I have some shopping to do.  A suitcase, huh, Buffy, if we're going to elope?"

            He paid for Buffy's tea and took her out of the shop, and Xander and Anya stood together, watching them drive away.

            "Did anyone else think that was slightly wrong?" Xander said.

            "He said he loves her," Anya said doubtfully.

            "Yeah, An?  Guys say that whenever they want, to get whatever they want."

            "Even you?"

            "Well, what I want is to be with you.  So that works out okay.  But didn't it seem to you that maybe, he's just doing this to get that heir?"

            "It is a bit sudden," Anya agreed.

            "Too sudden.  I don't trust him."

            "Xander, you don't trust lavender oil, and its properties have been proven over and-"

            "I just don't trust him," Xander repeated, looking annoyed.  "Can we leave it at that?"

            "Oh, this is one of those thriller movie things.  I get it," Anya said.  "Don't trust him.  Right.  No.  We don't."

            "Anya?"

            "Yes?"

                "Shut up, honey."


	2. Chapter One: Green and Pleasant Land

Chapter One

            Buffy had laughed at Spike's fussing before they got on the plane, but now she wished she'd given in and let him hire a wheelchair or whatever.  Anya's herbs had only helped a little with the ankle-swelling and Buffy's back ached horribly.  She didn't want to have to walk the massively long distance to baggage reclaim, she didn't want to stand in a queue for hours at passport control, and she didn't want the long, frustratingly late train journey at the other end.

            But Spike sent her to sit down, got her something to drink, and got the bags himself.  He was treating her like glass.  It was rather nice to be pampered.

            And then they walked out into Arrivals, and there was someone holding a placard reading Lord Spellingdon, and Buffy laughed until Spike led her over and said, "Buffy, this is Michael.  He's my chauffeur."

            Buffy gaped.  "You have a chauffeur?"

            "Well, technically he's my dad's, but I didn't fancy driving after all that time."

            "Are we going to your parents' house?  I thought we were going to your place."  Buffy had imagined a smart London apartment.  She hadn't really asked Spike too much about it.

            "No, we're going to my place," Spike said.  "Come on."

            Michael led them out to a limousine, and Buffy laughed out loud at the bizarreness of it all.  Inside it was hugely spacious, there was food, and hot and cold drinks, and a little TV screen.  Spike put a news channel on, turned the sound down, and Buffy fell asleep with her head on his lap.

            He looked down at her, blonde hair spreading across his knees, and touched her swollen stomach with his fingertips.  Last week he'd been a miserable bugger moping around his sister's house, and this week he was engaged to the only woman he'd ever really, really wanted.  Sure, he'd thought he loved Drusilla, but really he'd been mostly excited by her.  With Buffy, he just wanted to take care of her.  Make her smile, watch her sleep, hold her close and smell the scent of her skin, kiss her soft mouth and run his hands over...

            Okay, he had to stop thinking like that or he was going to wake Buffy up.

            Spike concentrated on the news.  He'd missed what was going on at home while he'd been away - American news channels rarely reported anything that happened outside of America.

            By the time Spike had heard Tony Blair's most recent speech to the Commons about six times, they were getting close to his home, and Spike gently shook Buffy awake.

            "Nearly there," he said.  "Nice sleep?"

            "Why is doing nothing so tiring?"

            "Because you were only doing nothing on the plane, and before that you were being quite exhausting."

            Buffy blushed, and Spike grinned.

            "That is pretty damn adorable," he said.  He bent down and kissed her, and Buffy wriggled around so she was sitting up, her arms around him, holding him as close as she could get him.

            "You taste really good," she said.

            "Don't sound so surprised."

            "You usually taste like ashes."

            "Cheers."

            "Not that I didn't get used to quite liking it..."

            "Does that mean I can start smoking after the baby's born?"

            Buffy shook her head vigorously.  "Smoking is damaging to children as well as unborn babies," she said, and Spike made a face.

            "Guess I'll have to find a new addiction," he said, and slid his hand up under her top.

            "Didn't you say we're nearly there?" Buffy asked, not really wanting him to stop, but not really wanting to be half-naked when they pulled up, either.

            Spike hit a button on the centre console.  "Michael, go the long way around."

            "Yes, sir."

            Spike grinned at Buffy.  "Not nearly there at all."

            "Oh, no, what a shame..."

            Buffy wasn't as flexible as she used to be, but Spike didn't mind at all.  It had been a while since he'd had sex in a car and he was looking forward to remembering how it went.  He pulled off Buffy's new oversized shirt and nuzzled her neck.  God, she smelled good.  Her fingers were pushing up his t-shirt, playing with his stomach muscles, and she was kissing his ear, nibbling on it, whispering all sorts of naughty things to him.

            Spike pulled down one of her bra cups and stroked her nipple, and Buffy gasped, because they were so much more sensitive than they'd been before.  He licked and sucked at her breast, and Buffy moaned, her head back, holding him there.  His hand was pushing up her skirt, stroking the back of her knee, her thigh, her buttock, and she reached down to his crotch to free the big hard bulge in his jeans.

            She ran her finger over the tip of his erection, and Spike sucked in a breath, his own fingers kneading the gusset of her knickers.  Buffy writhed against him, and Spike, unable to stand it any more, pulled her onto his lap, her back against him, and shoved her knickers aside.  He slid into her, big and hard, and Buffy moaned so loud that Michael, driving the car up the long main drive to the house, raised his eyebrows and made a wide U-turn over the grass to drive around the village one more time.  Good job the windows were blacked out.

            Spike kept his hand between her legs and stroked Buffy as she moved herself up and down on him.  They'd been apart only six months, but that was six months of sex they'd both been missing.  Spike planned to take Buffy straight to bed when they got home, and not let her out until - well, until she went into labour.  Harmony's husband was a doctor and he'd told Spike there was nothing wrong with having sex while Buffy was pregnant.  Spike took this advice to mean they should have as much sex as possible.  Hell, he was just following doctor's orders.

            He took her earlobe between his teeth and bit down gently.  Buffy cried out, and came, tightening around him, and Spike gave in and came too, exploding inside her, holding her tight, breathing hard against her neck.

            "Never, ever, stop doing that," he said.

            "What did I do?"

            "I dunno.  Just keep on doing it."  He kissed her neck.  "I love you."

            "I kinda like you too," Buffy replied, moving off him and reaching for the box of tissues on the bar in front of them.

            "Just 'like'?"

            "Adore.  Need.  Want."

            "And?"

            "Love.  I love you."  She kissed him, feeling happier than she could ever remember.

            They pulled up at the house five minutes later, after Buffy had frantically cleaned herself up and re-done her make-up and tried to make some sense of the birdnest Spike had turned her hair into.  But as soon as she stepped out of the car, she knew everyone knew what they'd been doing.

            Everyone, that was, who was standing outside the house.  The house that was bigger than Sunnydale High.  No - scrap that, she thought in awe, it was bigger than the whole of Sunnydale.

            "So," she asked nervously, "which bit's yours?"

            Spike laughed.  "All of it, love."

            "Very funny."

            "No, just very expensive.  Viscount Spellingdon doesn't earn that much legitimately, you know."

            "And illegitimately?"

            "He brings home quite a lot.  Come meet the servants."

            Buffy felt like she might faint.  It had been enough to learn that Spike's father was an earl, and then she'd had to try and understand the whole 'courtesy title' idea.  Viscount Spellingdon was really just one of the Earl of Stanchester's minor titles, but Spike, as his eldest and only son, was allowed to use it until he inherited the earldom.  This meant that Buffy would become Lady Spellingdon, a viscountess, and her baby would be known as 'honourable'.

            And then there was this massive house.

            And then the servants.

            "This is Davis, the butler, and Jones, the housekeeper."

            "They don't have first names?" Buffy whispered.

            Spike laughed.  "Our butlers and housekeepers have always been called Davis and Jones," he said.  "It's like the earldom itself.  It's passed on through the family.  My Jones is Dad's Jones's sister, and my Davis is Dad's Davis's cousin.  They've been with us for centuries."

            "I see," Buffy lied.

            "Look, we can do this later," Spike said, looking at the tired confusion in her eyes.  "Do you want something to eat?  Bath, shower?  Bed?"

            "Bed," Buffy said gratefully.

            Spike's eyes gleamed.  "Me too.  Jones, is it all made up?"

            The middle-aged woman nodded.  "All ready for you, sir."

            "Excellent.  My lady, may I show you your bedchamber?"

            "I don't get to sleep in yours?"

            "No," he laughed again, "I was being ironic."

            "I don't understand British humour."

            "Neither do a lot of Britons.  Come on."

            He took her up a huge, very long staircase, and Buffy wondered if a place like this had elevators.  Actually, a place like this should have moving walkways.  Or golf carts.

            "Golf carts?" Spike said.

            "Did I say that out loud?"

            "I think you need some more sleep," he ruffled her hair.

            "I don't usually sleep this much.  Being pregnant is exhausting."

            He pushed open a set of huge double doors and led Buffy through what looked like a living room, filled with antique furniture.  Then he took her up a little flight of stairs to another door, opened it, and Buffy's eyes were filled by the biggest bed she'd ever seen.  It almost looked normal-sized in this room, however, which was bigger than Buffy's whole house in Sunnydale.

            "Seriously?" she said, tearing her eyes away from it and looking up at Spike.

            "Yep.  It's a State Bed.  Queen Elizabeth had it made."

            "The queen slept here?  When?  Did you meet her?"

            Spike looked delighted.  "Not the current one, love.  The first one.  The bed's four and a half centuries old."

            At that, Buffy did start to feel dizzy, and Spike caught her and laid her down on the bed before she hit the floor.  "Buffy?  Buffy, are you alright?"

            "You live in a house big enough for its own zip code and your servants know more about their ancestors than I do about mine and all your furniture is older than America and I'm lying on a bed where Elizabeth the First once slept..."

            Spike nodded as if this was all perfectly normal.  "Buffy's sometimes short for Elizabeth, right?"

            "Sometimes.  Not for me."

            "No.  Not for you.  You're unique."  He stroked back her hair.  "Go to sleep.  I have to talk to the servants anyway."

            Buffy nodded and yawned and closed her eyes, but she didn't sleep.  Her mind was reeling.

            Spike wandered down the huge staircase and met Clements, his estate manager, at the bottom.

            "Nice of you to put in an appearance."

            Spike rolled his eyes.  "I had more important things to do."

            "You brought a pregnant woman home?"

            "Yes, and?"  Spike got out a packet of cigarettes and lit up, rolling his shoulders and inhaling deeply.

            "Is it yours?"

            Spike narrowed his eyes.  "Watch it."

            "Well, you know, they'll tell you anything to get the title.  Remember Drusilla?"  He had to run to keep up with Spike as his boss strode out of the house and into the sunshine.

            "I spend most of my waking moments trying to forget."

            "An American woman... The earl won't like this.  What are you going to do with her?"

            "Oh, I figured I might tie her up in the cellar... I'm going to marry her, Clem, what do you think?"

            "Marry her?"  Clem looked horrified.  "But - but, she's nobody!"

            Spike rounded on him and Clem had his back against the wall before he'd even taken another breath.

            "She is not bloody nobody," Spike hissed, Clem's collar bunched in his fist.  "She is my fiancée and the mother of my child and the woman I love and she is going to be your lady and mistress.  So you're going to be nice to her.  Right?"

            Clem held up his hands in surrender.  "Right.  Of course.  I didn't mean anything by it."

            "Yeah.  Of course you didn't."  Spike stepped away, and Clem tried to relax.  He had a lot of respect for Spike, but with that respect came a lot of unease and sometimes total terror.  It was sometimes easy to forget exactly who his boss was.

            "I'm sure she's a great girl."

            "Got that right.  And she's gonna be a great lady."

            "I still don't think your father-"

            "My bloody father?  He's an arsehole.  I don't give a rat's-"

            "He's coming tomorrow," Clem said, and Spike lit up two more cigarettes.

            In the morning, Buffy woke to the sound of a telephone ringing.  She opened her eyes to see Spike leaning over the far edge of the bed - and with a bed that size, far meant far - and picking up the receiver.

            "Yep?  Er, yeah, lots of it.  Buffy?  You want some coffee?"

            Stunned, she nodded.  Then she shook her head.  "Um, I'm not supposed to..."

            "Right.  No, she'll have tea.  Right, love?  The stuff I gave Jones yesterday.  Yes, it _is_ tea.  Well, bloody find it then," and he put the phone down.

            Buffy was silent for a few minutes as she tried to figure out what to say.

            "They call to offer you coffee?"

            "Beats a speaking tube.  And I sort of got pissed off with them just walking in with a tea tray."

            For Buffy, it was a giant leap to think of anyone making her tea in the morning.  Sure, her mom did it sometimes, but usually she and Dawn had left the house by the time Buffy was awake.  She'd got used to cooking for herself, tidying up, cleaning the bathroom.

            "I suppose you have a cook?"

            Spike shrugged.  "One or two."

            Jesus.

            "And... maids?"

            "They weren't very maidenly last time I checked," Spike grinned, and Buffy rolled her eyes at him.  He rolled back over to her and kissed her neck, then her mouth, then pushed the covers down and started stroking her breasts.  He lowered his head and licked her nipple - and then his head came up like he'd been electrically shocked.

            "What?" Buffy said, alarmed.

            "Er, is it normal for them to be, uh," he looked horribly embarrassed, "leaking?"

            Buffy looked down.  "Yes," she said, smiling although she didn't mean to, "it's normal.  And your fault."

            "What?  What did I do?"

            "Stimulated milk production.  In a couple of months someone else is going to get precedence there."

            Spike made a face.  "Well, that sucks."

            "Pretty much the idea."  She stroked his hair.  "You can still do it, if you want."

            "I dunno.  It's a bit... weird.  Sort of Oedipal."

            Buffy laughed.  "Up to you.  I heard-"  she broke off, listening.  There was a knock at the door, and Spike called out, "Leave it out there."

            He dropped a kiss on her shoulder and climbed out of bed, across the vast surface of sheets and duvet, picking up a silk dressing gown as he went.  Buffy watched him.  This was a different Spike from the one she knew.  Her Spike would never have worn a silk gown.  But then her Spike didn't own a vast palace and have servants with lineages.

            He left the room, then came back with a tray, on which was balanced a coffee pot, tea pot, strainer, teaspoons and dainty china cups with saucers.  He put the tray down on Buffy's side of the bed, then poured her tea for her.

            "Today," he said, watching her drink, "I thought we might go for a ride.  Show you the estate."

            "This place has an estate?"

            "Got to have something the tax man can take away from me."

            "So... When you say ride...?"

            "In a car, love.  Not gonna make you get on a horse."

            "Okay, good, 'cos me and horses are unmixy things."

            "You've never ridden?"

            Buffy's eyes gleamed.  "Well, not for a couple of hours..."

            Spike gave a slow smile.  "A couple of hours too long."

            He kissed her lightly, then moved in closer, tasting her properly.  She was sweet and sour all at once: the taste of herbal tea still lingered on her tongue, and Spike pulled her closer, intoxicated.

            And then the phone rang again.

            "Bloody thing," Spike cursed.  He snatched up the receiver by Buffy's side of the bed and snapped, "What?"

            Buffy watched him, her own breathing fast and heavy.  She hoped whatever it was would go away.  She didn't know if it was hormones or long celibacy or both combined, but she'd just been constantly horny since she got Spike back.  She reached out and stroked his neck and watched his jaw tighten in pleasure.

            "Yeah, we'll be down in a bit," he sighed into the phone, and ended the call.

            "Down where?" Buffy asked playfully.

            "The drawing room, to meet my father."

            Buffy stopped playing.  "Your father?  Is coming here?  Or is he already here?"

            "He's about an hour away.  Maybe less."

            "Oh, God.  I have to - what am I going to wear!  Where's all my stuff?  God, Spike-!"

            He caught her hands.  "Calm down, love.  There's plenty of time.  Your stuff's been put away in your dressing room."

            This perked Buffy up considerably.  "I have a dressing room?"

            "And your own bathroom."

            "Wow.  Cool.  Where?"

            Laughing, Spike pointed to a door on the far wall, and helped Buffy out of bed and into a robe to go and investigate.

            Inside the dressing room she found deep walk-in wardrobes lining the walls, tall mirrors, angled mirrors, even a chaise longue for if the effort of dressing became too much.  Next door was a bathroom, very large and ornate, with a claw-foot bathtub.

            "And this is all mine?  I don't have to share it with anyone?"

            Leaning in the doorway, Spike shook his head.  "Only if you want to."

            Buffy fingered the tie of her robe.  "And if I want to?"

            "Then you just have to ask."

            "I'm asking.  Come and show me how to work the shower."

            Spike showed her, but the water was running cold long before either of them got around to any kind of washing.  Afterwards, Spike dried Buffy off, sat her on his lap and towelled her hair.  She reached up and touched the livid pink scar running down his face.

            "Will it fade?"

            "You don't like it?"

            "No, I - it's kinda sexy.  And," she kissed the burned skin, "I remember how you got it."

            Spike slowed his towelling.  "Not likely to forget."

            Buffy pressed her forehead against his and closed her eyes.  "You saved my life," she said, "and Dawn's."

            "Yeah, well, just repaying a favour.  You got me out of that cellar."

            "I did, didn't I?"  Buffy smiled, pleased with herself.

            "I thought you were dead," Spike said, holding her close.  "He shot you and I thought-"

            "I had a bullet-proof vest on," Buffy reminded him.  "I got bruised, nothing else.  Unlike you..."

            Her hand traced down his body, over one round pink scar on his shoulder to another on his hard, flat stomach.  Scars he'd got helping her, saving her.  To begin with it had been a job - Joyce had been paying him in art, but Spike never collected it.  He'd never been told to protect Dawn, but as soon as she was in trouble he'd rushed off to save her, and that was when Buffy knew she loved him.

            Of course, then there was that ludicrous double-cross where he'd pretended to be against her so he could take out Angel and Drusilla, and Buffy had believed him, believed Spike hated her, had been using her, and it had hurt so damn much...

            Now, she couldn't believe she'd believed him.  Spike loved her, she knew that now.  The beautiful solitaire ring on her finger was proof enough of that, as was the monster baby that had been kicking her black and blue all night.

            "You know," she said, putting her hand on her rather sore stomach, "if this kid kicks as much when it's born as it does now, I'm signing it up for Manchester United.  Even if it is a girl."

            "They have a women's team," Spike said.

            "Famous baby," Buffy smiled, and kissed him on the lips.  "Now come and help me figure out what to wear."

            She still didn't have a lot of clothes, because she really couldn't see the point in buying a whole wardrobe for three months, but Spike had insisted on some beautiful things.  Rich fabrics and lovely colours.

            Buffy didn't know it yet, but Spike was planning on having her wear them a lot more than just three months.  There would be many more babies after this one.

            He helped her dress in a lilac summer dress with a high waist and little daisies on the bodice, then went and put on his usual black jeans and dark t-shirt.  This one was faded blue, though, and it looked damn good on him.

            "If you have so much money," Buffy asked, "then why do you always wear the same thing?"

            "That's why the aristocracy have so much money," Spike told her as he pulled his boots on.  "They never wear anything new.  Darla usually wears Mum's clothes most of the time."

            "Darla?"

            "Older sister.  Same mother as me."

            "How old were you when she died?"

            "Twelve," Spike said after a short pause.  "Darla was seventeen.  Dad got married again within the year.  I think he'd been messing around anyway."

            Buffy was appalled.  "How did your mother die?"

            "Lung cancer."  At her incredulous look, he went on, "Dad's a bastard.  I'll tell you that now, so you're not disappointed.  Meet him now, and hopefully we won't have to see the old bugger until the christening.  When he will not be allowed to hold the baby, because he dropped Harm all the time when she was little."

            No kidding, Buffy thought, but she said, "I meant with the lung cancer thing.  Did it not, maybe, make you think you shouldn't smoke?"

            Spike shrugged.  "Well, something's gonna kill me," he said philosophically.  "Can't avoid smoke all my life."

            "Yes, but sixty a day?"

            "Look, in my line of work I'm far more likely to get killed by a stray - or not so stray - bullet, or a rabid guard dog, or a land mine or - Buffy?"

            She was sitting very still.

            "Shit," Spike said, and came over to kneel before her.  "I didn't mean - look, I'll be more careful now.  No more tomb robbing.  Proper deals.  I'll just stick to nice, safe antiques, right?"

            "And look how that last antique worked out," Buffy sniffed.  "Nearly got you and me - and Dawn all killed."

            "Because it wasn't a proper antique.  Look.  I won't go after anything dangerous.  I've got too much at stake now."

            "Yeah," Buffy said.  "I've just got used to the idea of not being a single parent.  Don't you go and widow me before I'm even married."

            Spike frowned at that, but didn't say anything and kissed her instead.  "You ready to go and meet my horrible family?"

            "They can't all be horrible.  I mean, Harmony's... Well, okay, Harmony's dreadful, but at least her and Darla made you come and see me.  They must be okay."

            "Mostly because they spent as much time away from my father as they could."  Spike watched Buffy fit her damp hair into a loose plait, swipe on some mascara and a little lipgloss, and put her feet into sandals.

                "All set," she said, and took Spike's arm to walk down the corridor and the long staircase, into the lion's den.


	3. Chapter Two: Lions and Lambs

Chapter Two: Lions and Lambs

            "How far away is he?" Spike asked Davis as they crossed the large lobby.

            "I'm not completely sure, sir, but to the best of my knowledge, approximately ten minutes."

            Spike nodded and led Buffy through a series of rather imposing rooms, to one which was mostly green, with soft sofas, and a piano in the corner.  "Can you get us some drinks?" he asked Davis.  "Buffy, what d'you want?"

            Buffy hesitated, unsure what to ask for.  "Tea?" she ventured.

            "Special tea?"

            She nodded.  It seemed like the safest thing to do.

            "Coffee," Spike said, "and tea stuff for the parentals."

            Davis nodded and glided away.

            "I think he used to be on Batman," Buffy whispered, and Spike laughed.

            "Trained at butler school."

            Buffy had absolutely no idea if he was joking or not.

            "This is so weird," she said.  "It's like a Jane Austen novel or something."

            "Since when did you read Jane Austen?"

            "I saw Emma," Buffy said defensively.

            "Right, okay, fine," Spike grinned.  "Buffy?"

            "Yes?"

            "Why are we whispering?"

            Buffy wasn't sure.  "Because I feel like I'm on a school trip.  This place is so..."

            "It's your home now."

            Buffy gave him a smile, but inside she was horribly unsure.  She really hadn't been prepared for anything like this.

            Davis the butler came back in, carrying a tea tray, and announced, "They are nearly here.  At the end of the drive."

            "Well, that's a good ten minutes," Spike said.  "Give us a yell when they get to the door."

            "You're not going to go and meet them?"

            "No, 'cos then they might think I actually like them," Spike replied, pouring water over her tea.

            Buffy wished she'd got Anya to give her some camomile or something to calm her down.  She felt horribly, horribly tense.  If it had just been her and Spike in a little apartment, maybe in London, then she wouldn't have been so scared.  When she'd come to England before, she'd stayed in Giles's little house in Bloomsbury, and it had been quite cute and fun, but also pretty normal.  Regular house, regular street.  Giles worked in a museum.  He ate takeout food.  There were bits of mouldy cheese in his fridge.  It was a normal house.

            Buffy wasn't even sure if this place would have a fridge.  Probably it had an icehouse or something archaic.

            Davis came back in.  "My Lord," he said, and Spike nodded, dismissing the butler.  He looked down at Buffy.

            'My Lord?' she mouthed.

            He grinned.  "I've tried to tell 'em to stop saying it, but they're pretty dyed in the wool.  You'll have to get used to all sorts of Ladyshipping after the wedding."

            "Oh, God."

            "You ready?"

            "They're here?"

            "Yep."

            "Shouldn't we go and-"

            "We'll be fine here," Spike said firmly.

            "So, do I have to call your dad 'my Lord'?" Buffy asked nervously.

            "Theoretically, yes.  But please don't.  He's got a big enough ego as it is."

            Buffy opened her mouth to ask what she should call him, when she heard voices outside, and then Davis reappeared and announced, "The Right Honourable Earl of Stanchester, Lady Gloria Dashwood."

            Spike scrunched up his face as if in pain.  Buffy steeled herself.

            The man who walked in after the butler looked reasonably normal.  He was about Giles's age, dressed in a suit, looked well-groomed and poised.

            The girl following him looked like the hookers in downtown LA.

            "Glory," Spike said sourly, and she gave a finger wave.

            "Hey there, Precious."

            "William," the earl inclined his head.

            "Dad," Spike sighed.

            Everyone looked at Buffy.  Spike got to his feet and Buffy started to do the same, but the earl, shook his head.

            "No, please.  No need to stand.  A lady in your condition..."

            Buffy gave him a smile.  "Hi.  You must be Spike's father."

            "Spike, is he now?" Gloria looked highly amused.  "Aren't you gonna introduce us, _Spike_?"

            Spike reached down for Buffy's hand, and she felt quite stupid just sitting there.  "Dad, this is Buffy Summers.  My fiancée.  Buffy, this is my dad, Lord Ethan Rayne Dashwood, Earl of Stanchester, Viscount of Spellingdon, Baronet of Blackwood."

            Buffy gulped.

            "And my stepsister, Lady Gloria Tunisia Dashwood."

            Tunisia?  Buffy was quite sure that was a country.  And wasn't Dashwood Spike's family name?  She didn't understand at all.  Glory sounded American, but she had the title of Lady?  Too confusing.

            "You can call me Glory," Spike's stepsister said, making herself comfortable on the sofa opposite Buffy, stretching out so Buffy could see how slim she was.  Ethan took a seat beside her.

            "Your stepmother sends her regrets," he told Spike, "but she had an urgent engagement."

            Spike sat down with Buffy, making no effort to offer his guests a drink.  "More urgent than my engagement?  Dad, my whole life you've told me that the only thing I ever have to do is marry and beget an heir, and since you married Tart-o-rama, that's all she's ever gone on about."

            "Don't you call my mother that!" Glory cried.

            "Oh, she's as much a tart as you are," Spike dismissed.  "What are you even doing here, anyway?"

            "Came to meet my new sister-in-law," Glory flashed an insincere smile at Buffy.

            "And you knew about her because...?"

            "Harmony called," Ethan said, his eyes never leaving Buffy.  "Said you had a pregnant girlfriend."

            "More than that, now," Spike said, putting his arm around Buffy.

            "When will it be due?"

            "August," Buffy spoke up.

            "You're only six months gone?"  Glory looked surprised.  "You look bigger than that.  I'd have thought you were about ready to drop."

            Buffy gave her a smile, but inside she said to herself, I do _not_ like that woman.

            "Don't be a bitch, Glory," Spike glared at her.  "Oh, no, wait, you can't be anything else."

            "I assume a wedding has been planned?" Ethan said.  His steady gaze was starting to unnerve Buffy.

            "Yeah.  Well, kind of."

            "Did you set a date?" Glory asked.

            "Not yet."

            "I await an invitation."

            "Yeah," Spike said.  "You know, the post around here's a bit dodgy.  You might not get it in time."

            "I have email."

            "Phone's often down."  Spike gave his father a cut-glass smile.  The tension in the room was awful.

            "Would anyone like some tea?" Buffy asked desperately.

            "Please," Ethan said, and then watched Buffy try to figure out which was the right way to do it.  She got the feeling he was disappointed when Spike came to her rescue, pouring water over the loose leaves in the strainer and then adding a little milk.  He made no move to pass a cup to either his father or stepsister, though, and while Glory sighed loudly and reached forward for hers, displaying a lot of cleavage, Ethan stayed exactly where he was.

            "I hear you met last autumn," he said.  "Through a mutual friend?"

            "Yes," Buffy said gratefully.  "Giles is like my mother's oldest friend, he used to teach at UC Sunnydale and then he moved back over here to take over curatorship of a museum in London."

            "Rupert Giles?"

            "You know him?"

            "I know of him."  Still that unnerving gaze, like he was trying to see right through her.  Or maybe he was.  Maybe that was the way earls looked at commoners.

            "Need to give him a call, pet," Spike said to Buffy.  "Didn't you say you wanted him and the girls to come over?"

            Buffy nodded, but missed out on her chance to reply when Ethan enquired crisply, "Girls?"

            "Um, sort of friends I made in London," Buffy explained.  "Willow and Tara.  They work at the museum."  Probably not the best time to mention they were gay.

            "Do you work?"

            "Well, not right now, obviously, but I, er, well at home I was learning about art history, I was thinking about maybe working in a gallery, um, maybe after the baby's born, I might-"

            "Viscountesses do not work," Ethan said, and Glory stretched herself like a cat.

            "It's not very aristocratic," she purred.

            "Bollocks," Spike said.  "Everyone works."

            "Your wife has a duty to remain at home and take care of her children," Ethan said.

            "Mum didn't."

            "Yes, and what happened to her?"

            There was an angry silence.  Buffy, so tense she thought she might shatter, asked in a strained voice, "Uh, Glory, you sound American.  Are you?"

            "I was born in Kentucky."

            Buffy refrained from commenting on that with a monumental amount of willpower.

            "But you were introduced as Lady Gloria..."

            "Dad adopted me," she smiled charmingly at Ethan, who smiled back rather glacially.  "I'm an heir of his now."

            Spike muttered something under his breath that Buffy was quite grateful she didn't catch, and then he said out loud, "Well, nice of you to drop by, but Buff and I have things to do."

            "Love the way you take care of your guests, Precious," Glory said.

            "I take care of guests who are invited," Spike said pointedly.  He got to his feet and held out a hand to Buffy, who stood awkwardly.

            "Erm, it was nice to meet you," she said weakly, as Spike towed her from the room at breakneck speed.  "What was that about?" she hissed when they were a couple of rooms away, and Spike had slowed to an ordinary pace.

            He stopped and ran a hand through his hair.  "Told you they pissed me off," he said.  "I didn't know bloody Glory was coming."

            "I'm not sure they liked me," Buffy said in a small voice, and Spike folded his arms around her.

            "I told you they were arseholes.  They don't matter."

            "But they're your family.  How would you feel if my family hated you?"

            He shrugged.  "Wouldn't bother me."

            "But then I'd be in the middle..."

            "But you're not.  I thought I got on pretty well with your mum and the little bit."

            "They like you," Buffy said.

            "Well, there you go.  They're the people who matter.  They'll come over for the wedding, and we can go see them all the time, and we never ever have to see my family again."

            "What about the wedding?"

            "We can have a little ceremony.  Just us and some random witnesses."

            "I wanted my friends there."

            "Okay, then just us and your friends."  He kissed the top of her head.  "Don't worry about it.  I hardly see them anyway.  That was just a duty visit.  Come on.  You want to see the estate?  All the lambs are growing up, and Clem said one of my horses foaled last night."

            "Clem?  Foaled?"

            He smiled.  "I'll explain on the way."

            He took her out to a big new Range Rover, strapped her in and set the air conditioning to cool them down.  Buffy figured she could get used to travelling like this.

            "Usually I rattle around in my Defender or something," he said, "but it has zero suspension and I'm trying to be considerate."

            "I'm duly impressed.  What's a Defender?" Buffy asked, and Spike pointed to a mud-encrusted, utterly ancient vehicle that looked like it belonged in WWII.

            No, make that WWI.  Buffy was suddenly grateful for the Range Rover's leather seats.

            Spike drove her out over some rutted farm tracks, which made Buffy horribly uncomfortable, even with the car's luxury suspension.  She was grateful when he stopped the car and pointed over a sweeping hill to a field full of sheep.

            "Can you see the lambs?  They're a bit bigger than last time I was here, but they're still pretty cute, right?"

            Buffy peered at the flock of fuzzy white animals.  Some of them were smaller than others, wobbling around on legs that were too long and thin.

            "They're adorable!  Can we get out and go see them properly?"

            Spike shook his head.  "They're not so cute close up," he said.  "Sheep are smelly buggers, and besides, they're not very hygienic.  And you," he patted her stomach, "are not going near anything unhygienic."

            Buffy rolled her eyes, but she guessed he was right.  The scenery was beautiful, miles and miles of open green fields, dotted here and there with sheep, bound by stone walls that were made of rocks piled together with no binding.

            "How do the walls stay up?" she asked, and Spike explained about building dry stone walls, getting the right kind of rocks, layering them correctly, as he drove her up to a higher field where the sun was bright and the breeze fresh, and Buffy could see for miles and miles.

            And them Spike pointed, and she saw a horse with a tiny foal standing beside it, on spindly legs, tufty hair blowing in the wind.

            "Please, please say I can get out and say hello," she begged, and Spike laughed and said that of course she could.  He took her over to the mare, who was rather doubtful of Buffy, but whickered happily when she saw Spike, and nuzzled his hand.  He wrenched up a handful of grass for her and she ate it happily.  Buffy was itching to be introduced to the foal, who was hiding behind his mother, but Spike warned her that the mare would have to trust her first.  She offered her hand, palm open, to the horse, who sniffed it, then nudged it.

            Spike put some grass in her hand and the mare ate it.

            "Now try the baby," Spike said, "he won't eat grass, but you can say hello."

            Buffy got down on her knees and held out her hand to the foal, who was terribly shy, but eventually nuzzled her palm with a soft, warm muzzle, and kicked her hand.  Buffy felt her heart kick over.  She reached out her other hand and stroked the little horse, and it made a soft noise of pleasure.

            "Oh, God, I think I'm in love," Buffy said, and was astonished to find tears in her eyes.

            Spike watched her, and realised he was seeing a mother with a baby creature.  Maybe not her own, but Buffy was still looking at the foal with such an expression of tenderness it made his breath catch.

            "You're really going to be a mother," he said, and Buffy looked up at him with shining eyes.

            "I really am."  The foal licked Buffy's face and she let out a delighted sob.  "God, I'm getting hormonal."

            "Clem said," Spike began, and she looked back at him, "he hasn't named her yet.  Do you want to?"

            Buffy looked at the little brown horse and felt overwhelmed with love.  "I'm not sure I could."

            "Well, you know, you're gonna have to get some practice in..."

            She smiled.  "I don't know what to call him."

            "Well, think about it.  For now he's just Lucy's foal."

            "Lucy?"

            Spike patted the flanks of the mare.  "My girl here."

            The foal lost interest in Buffy after a while and turned to its mother, nudging at her teats and sucking.  Buffy watched: she'd thought she might be embarrassed but she wasn't, not really, and neither was Spike, who seemed to be totally used to it.

            "I never thought of you as a farm boy," she teased as they walked back to the car.

            "I don't spend much time here.  Maybe I should."  He looked down at her.  "Do you like it?"

            Buffy looked out at the undulating hills, the clear blue sky, breathed in the clean air, and smiled at him.  "I do."

            "It's all yours."

            "Don't you mean ours?"

            Spike shook his head, looking serious.  "All for you."

            "I don't want a whole estate-"

            "Then what do you want?  Buffy," he put his hand on her belly, "you're giving me a child.  That's the most amazing thing anyone's ever done for me.  I want to give you something in return.  Something, anything.  Everything."

            She reached up and traced the scar on his face.  "All I want is you."

            "Nothing else?"

            Buffy shook her head.

            "That's the best bargain I've done in a long time."  He kissed her, long and deep.  "You've got me.  Forever."


	4. Chapter Three: The Bells of Hell Go Ting...

Chapter Three: The Bells of Hell Go Ting-a-ling-a-ling...

            "So, when you say estate," Willow said to Giles as he drove up the long, straight road that was part of the Spellingdon Hall driveway, "you don't mean like with lots of houses?"

            "Well, yes, certainly he'll own houses in the village," Giles said, "but really the term estate means the big house and all its land."

            "How much land?" Tara asked from the back seat.

            "I don't really know - probably several hundred acres."

            "And Spike really owns all this?"

            "It was deeded to him on his twenty-first birthday.  When his own son is twenty-one, he'll inherit one of the family's other estates."

            "How many do they have?"

            "Oh, three or four.  The present earl's mother will probably live on one, usually the smallest.  Then the earl will have another, with his wife, the countess, and his oldest son will have a third.  Then, if they all live that long, his son will have another."

            "What if there aren't enough estates?" Tara asked.

            Giles thought about it.  "I have absolutely no idea," he confessed.

            Willow turned excitedly to Tara.  "We found something he didn't know!"

            "Yes, very funny.  Look, there's the house."

            They all stared at it.  The place was huge, a large central building three storeys tall, with two storey wings flanking it.  Parts of the house were very old - late medieval, Giles estimated - and the newest bits were Victorian.  There was a preservation order on the house which mean it couldn't be added to without a lot of official permission - but if the house were to get any bigger, it would probably be seen from space.

            "And Buffy lives here?" Willow asked in awe, as Giles parked his old Citroën DS outside the huge pile of stone.

            "Buffy will soon be mistress of all this," Giles said, looking up at the high slate roof, crenellated like a birthday cake.  "God help us all."

            Willow punched his arm good-naturedly and got out of the car, only to be nearly knocked back into it by Dawn, who came racing out of the house and threw her arms around the redhead.

            "We heard you coming about half an hour ago," she said, hugging Tara next and reserving her best hug for Giles.  "What is this thing?"

            "It's a design classic," Giles said.

            "It broke down twice on the way here," Willow added.

            "Apparently they forgot to design the engine," Tara explained, and Dawn laughed.

            "How was your journey?" Giles asked.  "Buffy said you were coming in yesterday?"

            "Yeah.  It was okay.  Better than last time.  I watched Chicago on the flight."

            "Oh, I love that," Willow enthused.  "How's Buffy?"

            "Nervous.  Excited.  Nervous."

            "Is that what you're wearing?" Giles asked doubtfully, eyeing Dawn's little denim skirt and pink t-shirt doubtfully.

            "No!  I have a cute little pink dress.  I just didn't wanna get anything on it."

            "What's Spike's family like?" Willow asked as they went inside the cool hall, out of the hot sun.

            Dawn looked around to check no one was listening, then she said, "Really nuts.  And not in a nice way.  It's like, they think Buffy is beneath Spike.  And they hate that she's American.  When his stepsister is American anyway, and Harmony grew up in California, but hey, they'll use any excuse to pick on us."

            "The bigotry of the upper classes," Giles sighed.  "Most of them are very nice and normal."

            "Yeah, well, none of them are related to Spike.  I'm not kidding, he's the most sane one here."

            "Sheesh," Willow whistled.

            Dawn poked her head into one of the rooms leading off the lobby.  "Hey, Davis?  Giles and Willow and Tara are here.  Do they get rooms?"

            "Certainly, Miss.  If you would follow me."

            The three girls made faces at each other as they followed Giles and the butler up the stairs, along a million corridors, and to a couple of rooms.  Giles's was opposite Willow and Tara's, but the girls made him swap when they discovered he had a double bed and they two singles.

            "Is Buffy getting ready?" Giles asked, and Dawn nodded.

            "She said she wanted to see you when you got here.  Hang on, I have to see if I can remember how to get back there..."

            It took about half an hour, but she finally made it to Buffy and Spike's suite of rooms.  "Spike's gone to the pub," Dawn confided, "because he says he doesn't want to be in the house with his crazy relatives, but we all know it's because he's so nervous."

            "And he's not allowed to see the bride before the ceremony."

            "Yeah, that too."

            She went up the little flight of stairs to the bedroom and knocked on the door.  "Buffy?  Giles is here."

            Buffy yanked the door open and threw her arms around Giles.  "I'm so glad to see you!"

            "Buffy!  You look wonderful."  He was shocked to see how big she'd got, but she really did look happy.  Her gown was very simple, an empire-line dress in white silk, with narrow straps over her tanned shoulders.  She had low-heeled white pumps on her feet and a flowery circlet holding a short veil in place.  But it was her face that gave her away.  She was glowing with health and happiness, jabbering all the time about Spike and the baby and her new foal, who she'd christened Chocolat, and the ceremony, and Spike, and trying to get a dress that fitted, and her mom trying to get on with Spike's dreadful family, and Spike again...

            "Dawn, you need to get dressed," she said suddenly, pointing to her dressing room where Dawn's pale pink dress was hanging, and her sister rolled her eyes and shut herself in to get changed.

            As soon as Dawn was gone Buffy grabbed Giles's hands.  "God, I'm so glad you're here."

            "Are you alright?"

            "I'm so damn scared.  Giles, am I doing the right thing?"

            He stared at her.  "Wedding jitters?"

            "Yes!  No!  Maybe.  I don't know.  Hormones.  Something.  I'm just so nervous.  Have you seen this place?  I get lost about four times a day.  Whenever I walk into a room the servants are laughing at me.  Servants, Giles!  I can't handle servants!"

            "You don't really have to," Giles reassured her.  "They mostly run themselves, and Spike will help you out.  You are getting on all right with him?"

            "Spike?  Yes, fine.  It's almost too perfect, you know?  But his family are..."

            "I've met a few Dashwoods," Giles said succinctly.

            "I'm going to be a Dashwood.  Lady Buffy Anne Dashwood.  It's insane."

            "It's right," Giles said.  "You and Spike love each other.  You're going to have a baby together.  Forget about the title and the house and the servants.  Just remember those things."

            "Spike," Buffy repeated, "baby.  Spike, baby.  Ow!"

            "What?  What's the matter?"

            "It's still kicking me!  Giles, I think I'm having twins.  Or triplets.  Or quadruplets.  Or like a baby elephant or something.  It's huge.  I have to get people to help me stand up."

            He laughed.  "I think that's reasonably normal.  Your mother thought she was having twins when Dawn was born."

            "Yeah, well, Dawn can be a lump sometimes-"

            "I heard that," Dawn said, coming out of the dressing room, smoothing down her dress.  "How'd I look?"

            Buffy's eyes filled with tears.  "Dawnie, you look beautiful!"  She hugged her sister, sniffing.

            "Not at all lump-like," Giles smiled.  "Well, I shall leave you two alone.  I ought to go and find your mother, perhaps rescue her from the dreaded Dashwood clutches."

            He left the room and found his way downstairs, where Joyce was trying to hold a conversation with Spike's stepmother, who was older, but looked younger, much more expensive and much more trashy.

            "Joyce," Giles said, and she turned with a look of complete gratitude.

            "Giles.  When did you get here?"

            "Oh, about half an hour ago.  I've just been to see Buffy."

            "Doesn't she look beautiful?  I can't believe my baby girl is getting married."

            "And you are?" Spike's stepmother interrupted, looking over Giles's admittedly rather old suit with distaste.

            "Rupert Giles.  Old friend of the family."

            "Giles is giving Buffy away," Joyce said proudly.

            "Why, would no one take any money for her?  Candida Dashwood, Countess of Stanchester."  She extended a hand for Giles to kiss, and Joyce giggled when all he did was shake it.  "Where is Buffy's father?"

            "No one really knows," Joyce said easily.  "We separated a long time ago.  He doesn't keep in touch."

            "I don't keep in touch with my first husband.  But then, he is dead."

            "Yes," Giles said, "how dreadful.  And where is Spike?"

            "You mean William?  Down in the village, getting drunk."

            "Oh, marvellous," Giles said.

            Xander sat in the hire car outside the pub, trying to think of what to say.  He needed to find out exactly what Spike's intentions were: he still didn't trust the man his best friend was about to marry.  Buffy deserved the best, and Xander still couldn't shake the notion that Spike was using her.

            Eventually, he got out, and walked through the June sunshine into the heartbreakingly pretty English pub.  This whole place was like a chocolate box, he thought, not like modern London at all.  Horses clattered down the street and there were cottages with thatched roofs.  He didn't think places like this existed outside of period dramas.

            He found Spike sitting on a corner, staring moodily at a row of horse brasses, a full shot glass in front of him.  He was surrounded by a cloud of smoke and Xander frowned, because according to Buffy, he'd given that up for the baby.

            "Hey, Captain Peroxide, she's gonna smell that on you," he said, and Spike didn't really look up.

            "What's that?"

            "The smoke.  You're about to set off an alarm."

            "If pubs had smoke alarms, they'd go out of business," Spike said, glancing at Xander.  "Come to escape the frigid hospitality?"

            "Are all your family insane?  Or is it just you?"

            "No, they're just nasty.  Perfectly sane, which is even worse.  Drink?"

            "No, I think I'll turn up to your wedding sober.  Which is more than I can say for you."

            Spike shoved the shot glass away.  "Haven't touched it.  Buffy wouldn't want me turning up drunk."

            "She know you're here?"

            "No.  Came for some Dutch, but I don't want it."

            Xander took a seat opposite Spike and studied him.  His face was hard, closed, there was no telling what was going on in his head.  Probably just as well, Xander thought, and said, "About Buffy..."

            "Come to tell me I'm not good enough for her?"

            Xander opened his mouth, then nodded warily.

            "Well, you're bloody right.  But then, no one is.  She deserves... Well, I don't know what she deserves.  Better than me."

            "Got that right," Xander said.  "Do you know how-"

            "I can't give her everything," Spike said, not really listening, "but I can give her everything I have."

            "Very romantic," Xander said.

            "The other day I watched her with Chocolat-"

            "With chocolate?"

            Spike shook his head.  "Chocolat.  Her foal.  She named him that.  He's only a few weeks old.  She wants him for the baby.  Says they can grow up together.  She goes to see him every day, just sits in his stall or in the pasture and talks to him or plays with him... He's like her baby."

            "Until the real thing comes along."

            "And I watched her the other day, and I have never seen anything so beautiful in my life.  She's amazing.  Her kindness, her strength... That baby kicks her black and blue but she never complains.  I can't even comprehend being a parent, but it never seems to faze her."

            Wanna bet? Xander thought, but he said nothing.

            "In a not very long time, I'm gonna promise to love and honour her for the rest of my life, and you know what?  That's just not long enough.  I love Buffy," Spike said with more honesty than Xander had ever heard, "she's better than I'll ever be, and I can't believe I have her."

            Xander was quiet for a while, unable to think of anything to say.  Eventually he looked at his watch and said, "Better get going.  Don't want to be late."

            Spike nodded and drained his glass.  "Right.  Wedding.  Right."

            Dawn had left to go and find Joyce, and Buffy sat alone in her room, one hand on her stomach, feeling slightly dizzy.  It wasn't sickness, it was nerves.  She couldn't believe she was going to get married.

            There was a knock on the door, and she called, "Come in."

            It was Ethan, in morning dress, looked very regal.  Or earl-al.  Buffy wasn't sure how that was supposed to go.

            "You look very fine," he said, nodding curtly.

            "Thank you.  You look very-" Buffy searched frantically for the word, and eventually, gratefully, came up with, "noble."  Thank God!

            "Noble," he nodded.  "That's because I am.  The Dashwoods can trace their lineage back to Henry VIII."

            "Wow.  Even I've heard of him."

            "Yes."  He surveyed her, and Buffy plucked nervously at her skirts.  "How far back does your lineage go?"

            "Um, well, I think my dad's family might have been English.  Or maybe Swedish.  I'm not sure."

            "You don't know."

            "Well, no..."

            "The Dashwood line has been perpetuated by careful marriages.  Not only by Dashwood heirs such as William, but by younger sons and daughters.  Money must be kept in the family.  Noble blood must flow.  You do not have noble blood."

            Buffy stared at him, her brain fizzing.

            "Did you, perhaps in a history class, ever hear of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson?"

            "He abdicated because he wasn't allowed to marry an American divorcée," Buffy said, proud of herself for knowing.

            "Indeed.  Royalty has strict rules about religion, race, class... Here in the peerage our rules are less concrete, but they still govern us."

            Buffy frowned.  "If this is because I'm-"

            "What?  American?  Pregnant?  Ridiculously uneducated?  Unsuitable in every way-"

            "You married an American," Buffy said.

            "After I had produced two legitimate heirs of good blood."

            "That's it?  This is all about heirs?"

            "I cannot allow your child to inherit the earldom."  Ethan reached inside his grey morning coat and produced an envelope with Buffy's name on it.  "Whether it is, indeed, William's child, remains to be seen, but it will not be made the heir."

            Buffy stared at him, stunned, as he held out the envelope, and when she didn't take it, he put it on the bed by her side.

            "In that envelope is a sum of money large enough to purchase a house for yourself and the baby.  Another cheque will be sent to you each year until the child is grown.  You will find it very generous."

            "Generous?" Buffy whispered.

            "I do not wish you any ill, Miss Summers, but you must not marry my son.  Take that money and leave Spellingdon, leave the country as soon as you can - although I understand you cannot fly, a ferry will take you to France or Ireland - go home to American and do not come back.  That money comes with the proviso that you never, ever contact my son or any of the family, ever again."

            Buffy folded her arms over her belly and looked up at the man she'd thought was going to be her stepfather.

            "Are you trying to buy me off?"

            "It's best for us all.  You're not of our class.  You don't belong in our world.  Go back to California.  Be a cheerleader.  Raise your baby any way you want and marry whomever you wish.  You will be well provided for.  Just stay away from my family."

            Buffy looked at him for a long time and felt to angry her blood heated up and the baby kicked fretfully.  She picked up the envelope and opened it.  The cheque inside was for a larger amount of money than Buffy had ever thought she'd have.

            "A house for yourself, food and clothes for the baby, a car, childcare while you," Ethan's lip curled slightly, "work, if you still find you need to."

            Buffy looked at the cheque.  With this she could probably send the baby to a private school.  Pay off her mom's gallery debts.  Live, as he'd said, very well indeed.

            She looked up at Ethan, and he was even smiling slightly.  A smile that vanished instantly when Buffy ripped the cheque in half, then half again.  She threw the pieces at him.

            "Take your money," she said, "and stay the hell away from _my_ family.  I am going to marry Spike and I don't give a fuck if you disinherit him or throw him out of this house - or whatever the worst thing you can do is.  I don't want to be a viscountess or a countess and I don't want my baby to inherit your damn title.  I want Spike, because I love him and he loves me and our baby.  Now get out of my room, get out of this house, and don't you ever come back or I swear I will kill you, because I've done it before."

            Ethan looked at her for a long moment, then left, and Buffy fell back on the bed, shaking, tears leaking from her eyes.

            Joyce and Dawn came back to the suite five minutes later, and Buffy just had enough time to sit back up and wipe away her tears before the door opened.

            "Are you alright?" Joyce asked.  "Have you been crying?"

            "Hormones," Buffy said.  "I'm just so nervous."

            "Oh, honey," her mother put her arms around Buffy, "of course you are.  But Spike loves you, and everything will be fine."

            Buffy wished very much that she could believe it.

            She'd rarely seen him wearing anything other than his usual scruffy jeans and t-shirt, biker boots and of course, his beloved duster, and for a few seconds Buffy couldn't see Spike in the church at all.

            "Where is he?" she panicked, clutching Giles's arm.  "I can't see him!"

            "He's right there, by the altar," Giles said.  "Look."

            Buffy looked, and to her astonishment saw Spike standing there, nervously scratching his hand, looking divine in a traditional grey morning suit.

            "Oh," she said.  "Oh."  The baby kicked, and she absently put down a hand to push its foot back down.  Spike caught the movement, and he gave her a little smile.  Buffy broke into a massive grin in return and wished she could just run up the aisle and into his arms.  The sooner they were married, the better.

            But she allowed Giles to walk her up there slowly, and eventually, after what seemed like years, took Spike's hand at the altar.  The ceremony was short and traditional, no hymns or speeches, just a vicar with a dog collar, Spike and Buffy, and Dawn in her pink dress, holding the flowers and the rings.

            The baby kicked again just as Buffy said 'I do,' and she laughed, taking it as a sign.  "I think he does too," she said, and the small congregation laughed with her.

            They walked down the aisle, arms linked, fingers clenched together, and out into the sunshine.  Anya and Xander threw clouds of confetti over them, Dawn and Joyce and Willow and Tara and Harmony and Darla all rushed in and hugged them and cried congratulations that Buffy hardly heard, because she was searching the crowd for someone who wasn't there.

            Ethan.

            The chapel belonged to the big house, but it was in the village and therefore a decent walk back to the house.  The guests mostly went on foot, and Spike helped Buffy into a little trap drawn by Lucy, Chocolat's mother.  He put one arm around her, and the other hand on the reins, and they pulled out into the village street, the bells of the old church singing after them.

            "Hey there, Mrs. Dashwood," he teased Buffy, who curled as closely against his side as the baby would let her.

            "Sounds weird," Buffy said.

            "Well, actually, that's because it should be Lady Dashwood.  And this little bit," he stroked her stomach, "is gonna be The Honourable Little Bit Dashwood."

            Buffy smiled determinedly.  "It is, isn't it?"

            "But don't tell Dawn I said that."

            "Why not?"

            "Because little bit's her name."

            Buffy laughed.  "I love you, William," she said, and reached up to kiss him.

            "Woah, don't make me crash," Spike said, and reined Lucy in so he could kiss Buffy properly.  Willow, walking along the far side of the road, wolf-whistled, and Buffy blushed.

            "Do we have to do the whole wedding breakfast thing?  Can't we just get straight to the wedding night thing?"

            Spike grinned cockily.  "Maybe we could skip a few courses..."

             A massive banquet had been arranged in the cavernous dining room, and Buffy and Spike took their seats at the head of the huge table.  Giles, Joyce and Dawn sat beside Buffy, but the two seats next to Spike were empty.

            "Not that I'm complaining," he said, "but shouldn't my parents be here?"

            "They had to leave," Harmony said, taking her own seat a few places down.  "Daddy said it was some kind of official thing.  Really important."

            Spike frowned, but said nothing, and Buffy felt unease churn up inside her again.

            He didn't have a best man: the only person he'd known long enough to fill the role had been Liam Donelly, Angel, who he'd shot dead last year after he tried to kill Buffy and Dawn.  Spike was also not big on speeches, so he just stood and said, "Cheers for coming, eat up so I can go and shag my new wife," and sat back down again, with Buffy turning bright pink by his side and everyone else convulsing with laughter.

            More successful was Giles's speech, which was rather touching and quite amusing.  He toasted the happy couple and the bridesmaid, since no one else had, and received a watery smile from Joyce for it.

            After a while, everyone filtered through into the gigantic ballroom, which was decorated all over with fresh flowers, and Spike held Buffy in his arms and danced with her, surprising her with a reasonably elegant waltz.  And then as soon as he could, he led her back up the stairs to their suite, picked her up and crossed the threshold with her in his arms, and laid her down on the State Bed.  He unplugged the phones, locked the door, and kissed her until she was dizzy.

            "Can't believe we're married," Buffy whispered, looking at the ring on her finger.  Spike placed his hand next to hers, their rings matching, and kissed her fingers.

            "Believe it.  I bloody love you, Buffy.  I'll give you the stars."

            "I don't want the stars," Buffy said, a little fiercer than he expected.  "I just want you.  Just you, and our baby, and that's all.  I'd live in a hut with you and wear rags."

            "'With you, bread and onions'," Spike said.

            "What?"

            "Poem, love.  Means I don't want anything else but you.  Not the house, not the money, not any of it.  I'd live on bread and onions with you."

            "If all this was taken away you'd still want me?"

            "If everything was taken away.  I wouldn't even notice.  I just want you.  You're the most precious thing in the world.  Well," he touched her belly, "maybe one of two things."

            Buffy looked at him for a few moments, touched the scar on his face, then ran her fingers up into his hair, felt the pale strands curl in her fist, and brought him down to kiss her.  She pushed his jacket away and started on his waistcoat, fumbling with the buttons, keeping her mouth glued to his.  Ethan could take it all away from them tomorrow, and she wanted to remember Spike, remember him all over, before his undying love turned to resentment that she'd ruined his life.

            She couldn't manage his silk ascot and shirt and, laughing, Spike pulled them off, scattering buttons on the floor.  He pushed down the narrow straps of Buffy's dress, found the zip at the back and pushed it down to bare her breasts, then her stomach, and soon Buffy was only wearing knickers and stockings and Spike pressed his ear to her stomach.

            "I can hear its heart beating," he said.

            "Listen harder.  There's got to be at least three of them in there, despite what the doctor said."

            He moved back up her body and kissed her breasts, one then the other, stroking and licking and sucking, and Buffy held him to her, caressing his lovely back, his beautiful cheekbones, trying to reach down and undo his trousers but unable to stretch past her massive bump.

            Eventually Spike did it for her, taking off the rest of her clothes too, and they lay together naked in the middle of the giant bed, kissing languorously.

            "I can't seem to stop kissing you," Buffy sighed.

            "Not gonna hear me complaining."

            "Well, you might," Buffy said, "because my mouth can only do one thing at a time."  She pushed him onto his side and wriggled down the bed and caressed his buttocks, kissing his stomach and his groin, the dark hairs there, and then she ran her tongue up his long shaft and Spike sucked in a breath.

            "Oh Jesus," he said.  "Buffy, no - wait-"

            Puzzled, Buffy looked up at him.  "Why?"

            He sat up, swung his legs over her, and lay down the other way, his head by her legs.  "You were too far away," he said, parting her legs and putting his head between them.  Buffy smiled, then she gasped, and then she went back to what she'd been doing before.  It was a stretch, but they managed it for a while, until Spike pulled his head away and gasped, "Okay, enough.  I want you now."

            He flipped her on her back, knelt between her legs and drove into her.  Buffy cried out, "God, Spike, don't stop," and he didn't.  He was almost relentless in his search for pleasure - not just his own, but Buffy's too, and he slipped his hand between her legs to encourage her orgasm.

            They came together, and Spike crawled up the bed to pull Buffy back against his chest and hold her there.

            "God, I love you," he said.

            "Likewise," Buffy panted, breathing hard.  "Ow," she added, her voice small and exhausted, pushing at her stomach.  "I think we got him excited."

            She felt Spike's body shake with laughter against her back.  "Not just him," he said, and kissed her neck.  "I could go on all night."

            "It's not even dark yet."

            "Then that just makes the night even longer."


	5. Chapter Four: The Bough Breaks, The Crad...

Chapter Four: The bough breaks, the cradle falls

            The weather got hotter, and Buffy was surprised, because her previous experience of England had been autumn, when the air was cold and clear and the leaves were brilliant orange, yellow and crimson, everything was scented with woodsmoke and the rain came down cold and often.

            And now it was hot, really hot, nothing compared to California, of course, but Buffy was sure as hell uncomfortable.  She was barely sleeping as it was, and that made her irritable, and on top of that there was no cool air anywhere, because nowhere in Britain had any air conditioning, and when she'd suggested to Spike that he maybe install some in just a few rooms, he'd laughed and told her it was a waste of money, because summer in Britain was usually just three days when it didn't rain.

            Added to which was the annoying fact that Spike had decided sun was bad for the baby, so if Buffy ever tried to sunbathe, he threw a towel over her or hoiked her back indoors.  She protested that she was wearing high factor suncream, but he wouldn't listen.  He was pale and he wanted her to be, too.

            She spent a lot of time with Chocolat, but as the baby got bigger it got harder for Buffy to move around a lot, and after a while she gave in and just mooched around indoors, where at least there was always a toilet nearby.  She found the library - huge, musty, ancient, full of first editions, and she knew Giles would completely adore it - and started reading the classics she'd never got around to before.

            Spike spent a lot of time on the estate, and for someone who professed not to know a lot about agriculture he always had a lot to talk about when he came back in.  Buffy liked to curl up with him and hear him tell her about the sheep, or the horses, or the big harvest of barley they were going to get this year, before he got bored of farm talk and started kissing her instead.

            But even that lost its thrall after a while.  Buffy was sure it must be hormonal, just like she'd got so incredibly horny a few months ago, but now she could hardly bear him to touch her, not that way.  She wanted cuddles and gentle massages, not rampant fucking.  Spike was hurt the first few times, until she pointed out that it must be like trying to get passionate with a whale, and she could hardly move, and anyway, sexual activity just made the baby kick and she wasn't sure if that was a good sign.  After all, at this late stage it was supposed to have run out of room to kick.

            She woke up one morning to hear the dark growl of an engine and a door slamming.  Spike was already up and gone, as he was so many mornings, and she thought she heard his voice outside.

            She heaved herself out of bed and plodded over to the window to peek out at the driveway below.  There was Spike, still in his biker boots although he'd got blue jeans on now, and a green t-shirt, no duster, standing with his hands on his hips.

            And there was Glory, wearing a dress that was hardly there at all, posing against her Aston Martin, flicking her curls at Spike and flashing a lipsticked smile.

            "Ooh, I'm so thin, and I've got a bad perm and I found a crappy shade of red lipstick," Buffy mimicked.  "Trashy cow."

            Someone cleared their throat behind Buffy and she turned guiltily to see Jones standing there, her face as blank as it always was when she was around her mistress.

            "My lady," she gave a little nod that was as close to a curtsey as she'd get.  "Lady Gloria is here."

            "So I see.  Uh, is she staying?" Buffy asked reluctantly.

            "For several weeks."

            In several weeks Buffy would have had the baby.  She didn't want Glory around for that.

            "Oh," she said.  "Well, then, get a room ready for her, I guess."

            "A suite has been prepared," Jones said, and Buffy didn't miss the emphasis on 'suite'.  When her own mother came to visit, she got a room, but when Spike's trashy stepsister came, she got a suite.  Right.

            "Uh, I'll be down in a bit," Buffy said, and Jones turned to go, without offering to help Buffy at all.  Buffy stuck her tongue out at the woman and waddled into her bathroom, but when she pulled the light cord, nothing happened.  Great, the bulb had gone.

            Well, at least she had Spike's bathroom as a backup.  It was still so much of a luxury to Buffy to not have to share her bathroom with her sister and mother - but to have her own, and not share it with her husband?

            A little thrill ran through Buffy as she thought the word.  She still couldn't quite get used to thinking of Spike as her husband.  And nor could she get her head around being a wife.  She didn't feel like a wife.  She felt like a, well, like an elephant.

            "I swear that ultrasound was broken," she said as she stepped out of the shower.  "I'm having triplets at least."

            She got dried and dressed and put a little bit of makeup on, styled her hair a little, and before she went picked up the phone and called Jones's number.  "The lightbulb in my bathroom is broken," she said, "could I get someone to fix it, please?"

            "Yes, my lady," Jones said, "I'll get is done straight away."

            There were advantages to having servants, Buffy thought as she went downstairs.

            It was late in the morning and the breakfast that had been put out in the dining room had long since been cleared away.  Buffy went out to the Victorian conservatory, big enough to hold her entire Sunnydale house, and asked Davis to bring her the day's papers and some fruit and croissants for breakfast.  He did, although it took longer than when Spike was with her, and she settled down to read the colour supplements.  A breeze blew in from the open French windows and the blind overhead created some shade for Buffy to hide under, in amongst the ferns and yuccas and exotic blooms of the conservatory.

            "Hey there, Mommy," came a voice from the doorway, shattering the peace and calm, and Buffy rolled her eyes.

            "Glory," she said in her brightest, friendliest voice.  "I hear you're staying with us."

            "You don't mind, do you?" Glory said, coming into view and perching her pert little backside on one of the soft, cushioned basket chairs opposite Buffy's loveseat.  "I thought I'd come and see the bambino being born."

            "He'll probably be born in the hospital," Buffy said.

            "A he, is it?"

            "Well, no - I don't know.  But I think Spike wants a boy, so..."

            "So you're thinking masculine thoughts.  I heard that if you eat salt, that makes it a boy."

            What a pile of crap.  "Salt makes my ankles swell," Buffy said, and Glory looked down at them.

            "Better cut it out, then.  Don't want them getting any puffier."

            Buffy narrowed her eyes.  She'd thought her ankles were looking fine.

            "So," she said brightly, "we missed you at the wedding."  For target practice.

            "Well, Daddy had some important business to tend to."

            Daddy, ugh.

            "More important than his son's wedding?"

            "Well, you know, an earl has a lot of responsibility."  Glory picked up Buffy's glass and sniffed at the orange juice.  She made a face and picked up the nearby phone to ask the cook for some coffee.  "One day Spike's gonna have that responsibility."

            "I think he can handle it."

            "Oh, sure he can.  But you know Spike.  He can only handle one thing at a time."

            You've obviously never been to bed with him, Buffy thought.  "What do you mean?"

            "Well, you know.  Looking after the estate, or looking after his family.  And you know the estate has to come first."

            "What are you getting at?"

            Glory smiled.  "One day he'll get bored of his fat wife and screaming baby and abandon you for his birthright."

            Buffy tried to keep her cal, especially as Davis chose that moment to enter with a pot of coffee that smelled heavenly.  "Isn't his birthright to have a family?"

            "No, sweetie baby, that's just his duty.  You," Glory said, "are just his duty.  He's only doing you to keep your baby.  After it's born, he'll probably divorce you."

            "Get out," Buffy said, pointing to the door.

            "You didn't think he'd really let an American be the next countess, did you?"

            "The current one is!"

            "My mother has class," Glory said, her expression starting to look a little snarky.

            "Your mother would get thrown out of a trailer-park for looking too trashy."

            "Don't you insult my mother-"

            "Don't you insult me!  Get out of my house," Buffy said, and it occurred to her that she seemed to be saying this a lot lately.  She pushed herself to her feet.  "Go on, get out."

            "Or you'll what?" Glory said, winding herself sinuously to her feet - or rather, her toes, since she was teetering on massive heels, far above Buffy.

            "I'll call Spike," Buffy said, and she knew that was lame.

            "Spike won't come," Glory said smugly.  "I saw him go up to the top field this morning, while you were still wallowing in bed.  He won't even have phone signal up there."

            "Then I guess I'll have to kick you out myself," Buffy said.

            "Can you even lift your foot without falling over?  'Cos seriously, your centre of gravity has got to be-"

            Buffy slapped Glory hard on her cheek.

            "Ow!  You little bitch!"

            Glory slapped Buffy back and she clutched at the arm of the loveseat for balance.  She knew this was stupid, but she was so damn angry with this cheap flashy whore coming in here like she was more important than Buffy, slamming her family, her husband, her authority-

            She forced herself to calm down.  She was not in any position to get into a fight with anyone.

            "Will you just please leave," she said through clenched teeth.

            Glory folded her arms.  "Make me."

            Buffy reached to pick up the phone to call for Davis and get him to take Glory away, or call Spike, or something, but Glory slammed it down.

            "Running for help?  You know, he's only going to help you until the baby's born.  And then, well, you never know.  Maybe he'll get sick of the both of you, especially when he finds out it's not his."

            Buffy stared at her.  She was completely insane.

            "Oh, I know all about your little romantic tryst with your ex-boyfriend," Glory went on.  "The army captain?  I saw a picture.  Now he is _cute_.  Shame he's married now.  Oh well, marriages are easy enough to break up.  Not like I haven't done it before."

            "Get _out_," Buffy said.

            "What, so I don't go telling Spike your baby is actually Riley Finn's?"

            "It's not Riley's.  I haven't slept with him in nearly two years.  We broke up ages ago," Buffy said, and tried to sound calm.  She failed.

            "But you still took a holiday with him last year," Glory said, her eyes flashing.  "Somewhere in Europe, uh, Berlin or Vienna..."

            "Prague," Buffy said, "and it wasn't a holiday, he was protecting me - you know, I'm not going to talk about this with you, you're just a cheap tacky slut-"

            "Take that back!" Glory shrieked.

            "No!  You can't just come here uninvited and start insulting my family and my baby - who can only be Spike's, because unlike some people not so far from me, I don't sleep around-"

            "Like anyone'd have you, you're so hideously fat-"

            "I'm not fat, I'm pregnant-"

            "With someone else's kid," Glory yelled, and Buffy snapped, and punched her hard in the nose.

            There was a sharp click of breaking bone.

            Glory reeled backwards, shocked, blood covering her chin, and Buffy stared at her, not quite able to believe what she'd just done.

            "I-" she began, but Glory swung at her, catching the side of Buffy's face with her long fake red nails, scratching her, and Buffy tried to push her away but Glory caught her arms and gave her an almighty shove and Buffy hit the loveseat and lost her balance, landing on the floor with a hard thump, and then pain slammed through her and she looked down to see blood all over the floor, and screamed so loud half the household came running.

_AN: Yes, I know, it's a horribly short chapter, but I just had to leave you all in suspense.  What's gonna happen?  I know, but I'm going to make you wait, because I'm more evil than Glory and Ethan put together… But if you'all say nice things, then I might update that bit sooner… God, it's fun being evil_


	6. Chapter Five: Death or Glory

Chapter Five: Death or Glory

            Spike paced up and down the hospital corridors, his face so pale it made his hair look darker, heavy boots thudding on the linoleum floors, nails digging into his palms.  A door opened and he whirled around, but it was just a couple of nurses with piles of clipboards, heading towards the lift.

            He turned away, heard the lift doors open then close, and then a voice said, "Hey there, Precious," and he reached out without looking and grabbed Glory by the neck, slamming her against the wall.

            "I should bloody kill you right here, right now," he snarled, his face inches from hers, "eviscerate you and wrap your cheap, slimy guts around your scrawny little neck."

            "Hey, look, I've said I'm sorry," Glory said, "but she did start it."

            "I don't give a fuck who started it," Spike rammed her back against the wall just a little harder, "you could have bloody killed her, and the baby.  She could be dying in there," he said, determined not to cry, "and they won't sodding tell me _anything_."

            "She's very healthy," Glory said tentatively.

            "Yeah, well, maybe she was until you fucking picked a fight with her," Spike slammed his fist into her broken nose, and he heard a satisfying crack as the reset bones split apart again.  "Now get out of here, don't stop for help, I'm sure your plastic surgeon can fix that up nicely, and if you ever come near me or Buffy or the baby," he closed his eyes and prayed there still was a baby, "ever again, I'll fucking kill you."

            "You sound just like Buffy," Glory whispered.

            "Good for me," Spike said, and shoved her to the floor.  "Go on, fuck off."

            Glory scrambled away, into the lift, and Spike slid down the wall, head in hands, trying really hard not to cry.  No one would tell him anything, they'd just rushed her away from him, out of sight, and told him to wait and be patient.  How the hell could he be patient?  She was bleeding, lots of bright red blood, and her eyes were closed, and the doctors kept yelling unfamiliar words to each other, medical words that sounded bad, and he was so sodding frightened...

            "Mr. Dashwood?" someone asked, and Spike, as he had the rest of his life, didn't bother to correct him.  He looked up, and it was a doctor, the front of his white coat stained with blood.

            "What?  Is she okay?  The baby-?"

            "The baby's heartbeat is a little fast," the doctor said, "but it is strong.  The bleeding has stopped - there was a minor placenta abruptio, but-"

            "What does that mean?  Is that bad?"

            "It can be.  But in your wife's case," the doctor added hurriedly, "it's unlikely it will cause much harm.  The placenta partially detached from the wall of the uterus, which is what caused the bleeding, but the damage was minor.  Mrs. Dashwood is a strong, healthy woman.  There shouldn't be any complications."

            Spike let out a long breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding.

            "So - they'll both be okay?"

            The doctor smiled.  "They'll both be fine."

            "Can I see her?"

            "She's sleeping now," the doctor said, and then saw Spike's face and added kindly, "but you can go and sit with her if you like, just so long as you promise not to disturb her.  She'll need a lot of rest."

            Spike barely heard the end of that as he dashed into Buffy's room and saw her hooked up to a drip.  Her face was pale, her lips white, her skin waxy.  She looked very small and fragile, and he had to curb his first impulse, to rush over and throw his arms around her.

            Instead he took a seat by her bed and touched her fingers gently.

            "Buffy?"

            She slept on.

            "Buffy, love, they told me what happened.  If it's any consolation, you gave Glory a terrific broken nose.  I smashed it up a little bit more for you, I know you'd want that.  Soon as you're back up to strength we'll make a voodoo doll of her together, eh?"

            Her lashes made shadows on her cheeks - or were they dark circles under her eyes?

            "I haven't been spending enough time with you, pet.  Truth is, I don't know what I'm doing up in the fields, either.  Next couple of weeks, it's just you and me, eh, love?"

            He ran his hand over the large bump of her stomach under the blankets.  Something stirred and he realised it was the baby kicking again.  He smiled tiredly.

            "See the kid's getting on okay.  Take more than a catfight to bring her down, I guess.  Like mother, like daughter."

            Buffy's eyelids fluttered.  "Daughter?"

            Spike looked up in surprise.  "You're awake - I'm sorry, love, I'm supposed to let you rest-"

            She gave him a weary smile.  "I'm sort of bored with resting."

            "Well, you're gonna get a whole lot more bored with it, pet, 'cos that's all you're gonna do from now until this kid makes itself known."

            She rolled her eyes.  "You said you wanted a daughter?"

            "Daughter, son, don't care really.  No, actually, a daughter.  Little girl just like you."

            "What if she looks like you?"

            "Then she'll be an ugly bugger, but I'll still love her."

            Buffy felt for his hand.  "What happened to Glory?"

            He squeezed her fingers angrily.  "I re-broke her nose and threatened her with death if she ever came back."

            "No, really."

            "Yes, really.  She could have done you some serious damage, love.  I mean, I knew she was a psycho bitch, but I never thought... God, Buffy, if anything happened to you-"

            "It didn't."

            "It nearly did."  He touched the three long scratches down her face, the skin around them bright pink.

            "Hey, now we match."

            "They'll fade," Spike said firmly.  "They'll go, and you'll be fine."

            "They said I have to stay in here overnight," Buffy said glumly.

            "I'll stay too."

            "You don't have to-"

            "Yeah," Spike said, "I do.  I'm not leaving you here all on your own."

            "And when we get home?" Buffy looked up at him.  "And you go out to work all day and I'm sitting in bed, resting some more?"

            "I'll stay with you."

            "You can't.  Besides, we'd drive each other crazy."

            "Then-" Spike looked at a loss.  "Well, your mum will be coming back over soon, and the little bit - or maybe Red and her girlfriend could come back up."

            "Willow?" Buffy thought about it.  "I guess... Yeah, that might be cool... If Giles lets them loose from the museum."

            "He will if I have anything to do with it," Spike said.

            "Glory!"  Ethan looked shocked as she walked in, looking sullen, bruises on her exposed neck and a plaster across her broken nose.  "What happened?"

            "That vicious little bitch broke my nose," Glory threw herself at an eighteenth century chair.

            "Buffy?  How - why?"

            "I was trying to get her out," Glory said, "and she just flew at me.  It was completely unprovoked."

            "Completely?" Ethan raised an eyebrow.

            "Well, mostly."  Glory gave a catlike smile.  "Anyway, I didn't deserve this."

            "And your neck?"

            "That was your son, threatening me."

            "She's a bad influence."

            "Oh, please, he's always threatening people-"

            "She's a bad influence," Ethan said more firmly.  "We have to try harder."

            "Well I thought she might have miscarried," Glory sighed," but she appears to be revoltingly healthy."

            Ethan drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair.  "Did you mention Finn?"

            "To her, not to him."

            "We need to step this up."

            Glory smiled.

            Willow and Tara were waiting on the steps of Spellingdon Hall when Spike drove the Range Rover right up to the front door.

            "Buffy," Willow cried, "how are you feeling?"

            "Okay," Buffy lied.  She was horribly tired, all she wanted to do was sleep.  But she summoned a smile for her friends and let Spike help her up the steps into the house.  Davis was there and he bowed to her, and Jones was hovering in the background, looking vaguely anxious.  She pushed forward a wheelchair and Buffy laughed.  "Spike, what is this?"

            "You're supposed to be resting, love, I don't want you walking all over the place-"

            "I won't."

            "You bloody will, I know you.  And look, pet," he wheeled her over to where a section of the wooden panelling had been removed and an ornate iron grill took its place, "I got the elevator working."

            "I thought they were 'lifts' in this country?"

            "Something this grand has to be called an elevator," Spike grinned, opening the iron door and pushing her inside.  The walls were panelled with oak, there was an Art Deco light in the centre, and velvet seats around the edges.

            "Very cushy."

            Willow and Tara hopped in after them, and Spike hit a button.  The elevator creaked a little, but it made its way up to the first floor without any major disasters.  Nevertheless, Buffy found herself holding Spike's hand all the way up.

            "When was the last time this was used?"

            "Oh, I dunno.  1920-something."

            "Oh, God.  I think I prefer the stairs."

            They proceeded along the wide corridors, but Buffy soon realised they weren't going in the right direction.

            "Did you move our rooms, too?"

            "No, love," Spike was smirking, "just got something to show you."

            Willow and Tara were grinning.  They knew what it was, but they wouldn't tell Buffy, no matter how much she begged and pleaded.

            Eventually, with Buffy sulking and pouting in the wheelchair, and Spike grinning widely, Willow and Tara pushed open a pair of double doors and Buffy entered a beautiful room, painted in pale pastel colours, with stars on the ceiling and fluffy animals dotted around.  There was a dais on the far side, away from the muslined windows, and on it was a large crib with a lacy canopy.  It was the most ornate thing she'd ever seen, and the most beautiful, and her eyes welled up.

            "I've been fixing up the nursery, love," Spike said as she looked around.  "What d'you think?"

            "It's beautiful," Buffy sobbed, and Willow and Tara tactfully withdrew.

            "And through here," he wheeled her over to another door, "is the nanny's room, so she'll always be on call.  My old nanny has a niece who's trained at Norland, I can get her up here in time for the birth.  Highly recommended, keeping it in the family..."

            But Buffy was frowning.  "Nanny?"

            "Well, yeah.  Didn't expect to have to come all the way out here yourself, did you?"

            Buffy stared.  "Where exactly are we?"

            "South wing."

            "And our rooms are..."

            "North bit of the main house."

            "The main house which is several acres across."

            "Yeah.  Bit of a trek, especially in the middle of the night.  Look, I know how you've been missing your sleep-"

            "You want to put our baby in a nursery wing on the other side of the house with a total stranger?"

            Spike suddenly detected her tone of voice.  Ah.  Maybe she wasn't _totally_ happy about it.

            "It's the way it's always been done, pet," he said, kneeling down in front of her.  "She's properly trained, Norland's one of the best-"

            "A nanny?" Buffy repeated, staring around.  "Spike, I don't want my baby being brought up by a stranger on the far side of a house that's bigger than Sunnydale.  Do you know how damaging it is for a child to be brought up without its parents?"

            "Hey, it worked for me."

            "You hate your parents!  You despise your father and he never sees you.  Spike, he walked out of your wedding.  I don't want that with our children."

            If Spike noticed the plural, he ignored it.  "So what do you want?  Crib in our room?  Waking up every half hour because the baby can't sleep?  Changing nappies yourself?  Buffy, we have all these rooms-"

            "But why do we have to use the ones that are so far away?"

            "Because that's how it's always been done!"

            "You're doing this because of tradition?"

            "Well, what the hell else am I supposed to do?  I've never done this before.  I'm sorry if I don't have any great paternal instincts kicking in, but I don't know what this is all about.  Maybe you see something when you look on the ultrasound, but all I see is a blob.  I don't have hormones to hide behind.  I don't have instincts to help me out here.  The only thing I know what to do is what people in my family have always done, and you know something else?"   He gestured around the lovely room.  "I did this for you.  I was trying to help.  Screw you if you don't want it."

            And with that, he got up and walked out, and Buffy yelled after him, but the only people to come in were Willow and Tara.

            Buffy put her head down and cried.

            Worse was to come.  Willow helped her into bed and Tara mixed up some aromatherapy oils to calm her down, and Buffy was just curling up to try and sleep some of it away when the phone rang.

            "You want me to get it?" Willow asked.

            Buffy nodded.  "If it's Jones tell her I still haven't got my bathroom light fixed."

            Willow picked up the phone.  "Hello?  Er, Lady Buffy's room."

            "It's Lady Dashwood," Buffy sniffed, half to herself.  "I don't get to be Lady Buffy, not ever."

            "Oh," Willow said.  "Buffy, it's an outside call.  It's your sister."

            Buffy thought about talking to Dawn, and knew that in the state she was in, she'd just collapse into more tears.  Talking to home made her so tearful these days.

            "Can you ask her to call back later?  Tell her I'm asleep.  Or ill."

            Willow looked doubtful, but she nodded and said, "Hey, Dawnie.  Buffy's been having a rough day and she's got to try and get some sleep, so how about you give her a call later, maybe?  ...Oh.  Well, I-" she glanced at Buffy.  "I guess you should speak to her, then..."

            Buffy looked up, puzzled, as Willow held out the phone and whispered, "She says it's really important.  About your mom."

            Oh, God, Mom.  She'd been getting more of her migraines recently and Buffy hadn't wanted to talk to her too much in case the phone radiowaves made it worse or something.  Often Joyce had to go in a dark room and lie in silence all day until her head was better.

            "Dawn?"

            "Buffy," Dawn sounded terribly relieved.  "I have to talk to you."  Was her voice wobbling?  "It's Mom.  She's really sick."

            Buffy sat up.  "How sick?"

            "I don't know what's wrong with her.  They keep using long words and I don't understand.  They took her in for scans and there's something - I don't know, like a tumour?  She won't tell me.  Like she's trying to protect me."

            Buffy felt hot and cold all over, all at the same time.  "A tumour?  Where?"

            "In her head."  Dawn was sniffing hard, her voice squeaking as she tried not to cry.  "Buffy, I'm scared."

            You're not the only one, Buffy thought.  "Listen, Dawn, is Mom there?"

            "No, she's at the hospital."

            "Where are you?"

            "Xander's."

            "Is he there?  Can you pass him over?"

            Xander came on the line, and she could tell from his tone of voice that he was desperately worried, even though his words were cheerful.  "Hey, Buffster.  How's her Ladyship?"

            "More like her LadyTitanic," Buffy joked feebly.  "I'm huge.  Xander, what is all this about Mom?"

            Xander gave a short sigh.  "Those migraines she gets?  Turns out they weren't just headaches.  Her doctor sent her for tests and it's some sort of tumour.  They're trying to figure out how benign it is."

            "Benign?"

            "Yeah, whether it's cancerous or not.  I'm pretty sure not," he added quickly.

            "And if it is?"

            "Well, then they can operate to remove it.  She's gonna be okay, Buff.  She's gonna be fine."

            Buffy talked to him a bit more, then Dawn again, then she lay back on her pillows and closed her eyes, tears leaking out.

            "Will?" she called.  "You there?"

            The bedroom door opened and Willow's head came round.  "You okay?  Was it bad news?"

            "My mom has a tumour.  They're going to operate on her."

            Willow looked appalled.  She came in, Tara close behind, came over and hugged Buffy.  "But I'm sure she'll be fine," she said.  "Your mom seemed pretty healthy to me."

            Buffy clutched her friend's hand.  "But, but... what if she's not?"

            Clem found his lord and master sitting in the darkened conservatory, now clean of the blood Buffy had spilled everywhere, a bottle of bourbon in front of him, half of it gone.  Spike sat there glaring into the dark garden, the rose maze planted by his great grandmother, the fountain commissioned by his great aunt, the Temple of Athena some potty relative had built up in the hills a couple of centuries ago.

            All this was his, yet all he ever seemed to do to it was screw it up.

            "Clem," he said, making his estate manager jump, for he hadn't realised he'd been seen, "you want all this?"

            "All what?  The house?  The estate?"

            "All of it.  I don't want it.  I'm giving it away.  All it's ever done is mess things up."

            "Did you fight with Buffy again?"

            Spike downed another shot.  "She didn't like the nursery."

            "I thought it was very pretty.  Or was it too pretty?  Maybe she was hoping for a boy."

            "Everyone's sodding hoping for a boy.  A glorious heir.  You know Mum told me when Darla was born my dad didn't speak to her for three days, because he'd wanted a boy so much.  And then look what he got," he spread his hands.

            "You haven't turned out so badly."

            "I knocked up an American teenager."

            "She's twenty-two."

            "Thought you didn't like her, Clem?"

            "I was prepared to not like her.  She's grown on me."

            "Yeah?  Well, everyone else hates her.  The servants, Dad, bloody Glory..."

            "Glory's always been a problem."

            "Damn right she has.  I never thought she'd stoop so low... You know she's not allowed anywhere on the grounds now, right mate?  Nowhere near Buffy or the house or anything.  I don't care what Dad says.  She nearly killed Buffy."

            "I didn't think it was that bad."

            "Yeah?  I read up on that placenta abdominator or whatever it was called.  You know it can kill either the mother or child, or both?  The mortality rate's about thirty percent."

            Clem looked shocked.  "She really could have died?"

            "Yeah.  Because of an abdominal injury.  Caused by Glory shit-stirring," Spike suddenly grabbed his shot glass and aimed it at Aunt Rosemary's ornamental fountain, where it fell, eventually, after smashing through two panes of conservatory glass.

            There was silence for a while as the glass settled.  Clem said nothing.  Spike glared moodily at the dark garden.

            "You think she's asleep?"

            Clem doubted that anyone was asleep after that crash, but he shrugged.  "She could be."

            "I should go see her."

            He couldn't think of anything to say to dissuade Spike.

            "Be gentle."

            "Of course I'll be sodding gentle.  I'm not bloody Glory."

            Spike stomped back through the house, ignoring the servants who came running to see what the smash had been, and loped up the stairs two at a time to his room.  He paused in the little sitting room outside, stood at the bottom of the stairs, listened carefully.

            There was nothing.  She was asleep.

            He pushed open the doors and what he saw nearly broke his heart.  Buffy had had the big crib moved into the room, just by the bed, and she was curled loosely under the covers with a big teddy bear in her arms.  Her eyes were pink and her face was damp from crying.

            He rushed over.  "Buffy, I'm so sorry.  I didn't know it would hurt you like that.  I didn't mean to hurt you.  Buffy, I'm sorry..."

            Her eyes opened and her lashes were glistening wet.  She must have been crying for hours and not stopped very long ago.

            "Spike?"

            "Yes, love."

            "My mom's sick.  She has a brain tumour."

            For a second Spike was relieved that she wasn't crying so broken-heartedly over the nursery - of course, Buffy would just get on and do what she wanted, no crying, bugger him - and then he realised what she'd said, and he felt horribly cold all over.

            "Will she be alright?"

            Buffy shrugged helplessly.  "I don't know.  I want to go there but I can't, the airlines won't take me and the doctors won't let me and you want to keep me wrapped up in cotton wool and..." she dissolved into tears, and didn't resist when Spike put his arms around her.  "Spike, I'm so scared."

            "She'll be fine, Buffy.   I know she will," Spike said, but he didn't believe himself.


	7. Chapter Six: Sex, Lies, and Webcams

Chapter Six: Sex, lies, and webcams

_AN: So I borrowed a little bit of this from S6.  Sue me (no, not literally, please)_

            They agreed on a compromise: a part time nanny would be employed, probably just during the daytime but also maybe a few nights so that Buffy and Spike could get some sleep.  The crib would be in the next room and a baby monitor would be set up.  Spike insisted on getting the best he could, and set up a webcam overlooking the baby's crib.  Buffy thought that was quite ridiculous, and told him so, but she was very pleased that he was trying so hard.

            She eventually managed to get a number for Joyce at the hospital and spoke to her mother for a long time.  Buffy was more concerned about the tumour than her own impending motherhood, but Joyce dismissed talk of headaches and biopsies and scans with questions about the baby.

            Buffy chose not to tell her mother about Glory.  She didn't need to think about it.  So Ethan hated her, and now Glory too... Ethan had just tried to buy her off, but Glory... Glory had gone further.

            She was glad that Spike had CCTV set up around the house, an intercom on the gate, put someone in the gatehouse after a long absence, someone to check on everyone coming and going.  He said that it was because so many people had tried to kill him before, but he didn't look at Buffy when he said it, and she knew when he was bluffing.  She loved him all the more for it.

            Check-ups at the hospital got more and more frequent and Spike stayed with her all the time, driving more carefully than she'd ever known - or would ever have guessed - he could.  Willow and Tara offered to make the drive, but Spike wouldn't hear of it, taking Buffy out to the car and fastening her seatbelt himself.

            "I'm not made of glass," she told him.

            "Yes, you are.  Glass with an egg in it."

            "Bit more than an egg, now."

            "Sounds like a hangover cure," Spike said.

            "Well, the sight of me could scare anyone into sobriety."

            He leaned across the car and kissed her.  "You're as beautiful as you ever were."

            She smiled.  "Liar."

            Spike still insisted she go everywhere in the wheelchair, which annoyed Buffy slightly, but secretly she was relieved.  She severely doubted her legs could carry her weight for any more than the few steps from bed to wheelchair or wheelchair to bath.  Spike had to bathe her, which he enjoyed immensely, because it took Buffy about an hour to get in and out of the bath by herself.

            He pulled up in front of the house and came round to help her out of the high car, then up the steps into the house.  Buffy had the feeling that if he could have lowered the house to ground level, he would.  As it was, she was continually telling him she could manage the steps and didn't need a ramp for the chair.

            They went upstairs and he ran a bath for her and helped her in, but as Buffy was choosing bath salts the phone rang.

            "Be right back," Spike said, kissing her forehead, and went out through her dressing room to answer it.  "Y'ello?"

            "My lord," it was Davis, "you have a visitor."

            "Well, whoever it is can wait.  I'm busy."

            "It's Lady Glory, sir."

            "Don't let her in."

            "I'm afraid she is already in, sir.  She jumped the fallen wall, in the top field?"

            Spike nearly broke the handset.  "She what?" he said, his voice low and measured.

            "She came across country, sir.  On her horse."

            Spike banged his head against the wall.  "Where is she?"

            "The green drawing room, sir."

            Spike slammed down the phone.  He counted to ten.  Then when could act a bit calmer, he went back to Buffy and said, "I have to just run out to the stables.  Lucy's cast herself."

            "What?"

            "Fell over, pet.  Just need to wait with her until the vet comes.  You don't mind, do you?"

            She shook her head.  "Of course not.  I think it's kinda sweet you're so concerned about her."

            He kissed her briefly then strode through the bedroom to his own dressing room, withdrew his matching Heckler & Koch .45 pistols and stomped downstairs, into the green drawing room, and aimed both guns at Glory.

            "Precious is in a bad mood," she said, stretching a little.  She was wearing a riding outfit so tight it could have been sprayed on: white breeches that clung to every curve, tall shiny black boots, a black hip-length coat and even a frilly white cravat, topped off with a little black satin covered hard hat over her blonde curls.  She was tapping a riding crop suggestively against her thigh.

            "You look fucking stupid," said Spike, who usually rode his horses in the same outfit he did everything else.  "Get out of my house before I shoot you."

            "Only came to see how you're doing."

            "I'm doing great.  You have until ten."

            "And Buffy?"

            "That's Lady Dashwood to you.  Two.  Three."

            "All right, how's Lady Dashwood?"

            "Barely recovered from your attack."

            "And the baby?"

            "We don't know yet.  Could be half dead.  And if it is, then I'm going to have to kill you.  Six.  Seven."

            "Oh, hey Precious," Glory pouted, "you wouldn't do that.  I'm your own flesh and blood."

            Spike stared at her.  Delusional cow.  "No, you're not."

            "By law I am.  Did you know that if you and Darla and Harmony all die, then I'm the earl's heir?"

            "What, did some of that home perm stuff get into your head?  An earldom can only be inherited by a male heir.  Although maybe that's why your arse looks so lopsided, Glory, because it's fake and you're really a bloke."

            "Hey, that's not nice-"

            "No, well, neither am I.  You seem to have forgotten, love, that I'm not a very nice person.  There's a reason I got called William the Bloody at school and it wasn't my bloody awful poetry.  Now unless I'm very much mistaken I have two high calibre guns here and they're both aimed at you so unless you get your skanky little arse out of here before I reach the count of ten, I'll shoot you.  Eight.  Nine."

            Glory didn't move.  Spike moved one pistol a little and shot the sofa directly to her left.

            _Then_ she moved.

            "What, are you nuts?  You could have killed me!  God, Spike, you're such a bad aim."

            "No, I was aiming for the sofa.  And now," he moved the gun, "I'm aiming at you.  Ten."

            Fear showed in her face.  "All right, I'm going.  Sheesh, no need to get suicidal about it."

            Spike rolled his eyes in exasperation.  "It's homicidal, you complete dink.  Go on, fuck off."

            Glory went, but not without popping over and pressing kissed fingers to his ear.  "See you later, Precious."

            "Not if I see you first."

            As she left, Davis walked in.  "Target practice, sir?"

            "Yeah.  Call the upholsterer."

            "I have him on speed dial, my lord."

            Spike sheathed the guns and went back up to Buffy, who was struggling to get out of the bath.  "I heard a gunshot, what happened?"

            He pulled her to her feet, wet and slippery against him.  "Stupid bloody new maid cleaning the guns over the fireplace.  One of them went off."

            "Was she hurt?  Is everyone okay?"

            "There's a small hole in one of the uglier sofas, but I think it'll survive."

            Buffy smiled.  Spike was holding her very close.  "Spike?"

            "Mmm?"

            "Remember how I said I thought I was going off sex?"

            He made a face.  "Yes?"

            "Well, I think I've been off it long enough."

            He looked at her.  "Really?"

            She nodded.  "If I'm not putting you off, that is."

            "Are you kidding, love?"  He traced the healing scratches on her face.  "I could shag you right up until the delivery room."

            "Don't you think the doctors would be a little bit put off?"

            "Where do they think babies come from in the first place?"

            Buffy laughed.  She'd been spending a lot of time lately with the girls, sitting watching movies when it was too hot to go outside, finding paints for Tara to make pictures of the landscape, internet surfing with Willow, who kept finding lots of babycare sites and forums and adorable little babyclothes to buy online.  But Buffy didn't want to buy too much, not just yet.  Some superstition in her told her not to until the baby had come.

            She looked up at her husband and felt a wave of love.  God, look at him, so damn good looking.  It's not fair he's as hot as that while I'm all bloated and swollen.  Why on earth does he still want me?

            Spike carried her out to the bedroom, laid her on the bed and dried her all over.  Then he proceeded to get her quite wet all over, licking everywhere, tasting her skin, breathing in the scent that surrounded him at night, but he had to steel himself not to touch.

            And now he touched.  He kissed her swollen, sensitive breasts, her massive stomach and pushed-out bellybutton, her curvy thighs and eventually parted her legs and licked her right where he'd been wanting to for weeks.  Buffy moaned and writhed.

            "God, Spike, I want you..."

            "Not as much as I want you, pet," Spike said, lifting his head and getting to his feet.  He had her lying on the edge of the bed while he stood between her legs.  Now he raised her knees and slid deep into her, and Buffy let out a high gasp.

            "Oh, that's good, don't stop, Spike, don't stop..."

            He grinned.  "I don't intend to."

            He made full use of her sudden return to form and made love to her over and over, until Buffy lay back, exhausted, and declared she'd never move again.

            "So that's how I get you to rest."

            "Not quite what the doctor ordered."

            "Well, no, but a whole lot more fun."

            She fell asleep spooned against him, and Spike held her close.  "Love you, Summers," he said, and she replied drowsily, "I know."

            "No, my lady, his orders were quite clear," Davis said.  "I'm afraid you're to be taken off the grounds, and your horse too."

            Glory stamped her foot.  "But I'm his sister," she said.

            "Stepsister, with all due respect," Davis said, thinking that that wasn't a lot of respect.  "I'm afraid-"

            "Oh, stop being so damn afraid," Glory said.  "I just brought a gift for the baby," she opened her satchel and took out a teddy bear.  "See?  Isn't that adorable?"

            "Quite, my lady.  I shall see that it is delivered."

            "Oh, but it can't hurt to take it up there myself," Glory wheedled.  "I promise I won't go anywhere near Lady Dashwood's rooms.  Just to the nursery.  Is it where it always used to be?"

            Davis opened his mouth to say no, then he nodded and said, "Yes, my lady.  Ten minutes, and I shall be waiting back down here."

            Glory knew where it was, because Harmony had shown her around the house ages ago, and she made her way to the south wing as quickly as she could, looked around the slightly bare room, and frowned.

            She caught a passing maid outside.  "What happened to the nursery?  It looks a bit bleak."

            "Oh, it's not the nursery any more.  The baby will have a room next to his lordship's."

            Glory nodded, her eyes narrowed.  "Uh-huh.  I see.  Well, then," she waved the teddy bear, "I'll have to take him there, won't I?"

            She strode off before the maid, who was new, could quite figure out who she was.  One of her ladyship's American friends, probably.

            Glory found Spike and Buffy's rooms, but even she wasn't crazy enough to go in.  She could hear lots of happy gasping noises coming from within, and rolled her eyes.  Ugh.  Must be like fucking a sealion.

            She went to the room next door, which was prettily decorated with fluffy things and lots of toys and mobiles, and tucked her teddy bear down with all the rest, facing the crib.  She reached in the gap in its back, and flicked on the little hidden transmitter inside.  Then she fiddled with the webcam Spike had set up until she was happy.

            Ah, perfect.

            She took a notepad from her bag, wrote a little note and pinned it on the outside of the crib, facing the camera set up to the monitor in Buffy and Spike's room.  As an afterthought, she took off her riding jacket, removed her black and red bra, and dropped it in the baby's crib, then fastened her jacket back over her bare breasts.  Hell to ride a horse braless, but worth it later.  Besides, it wasn't a horse she was planning on riding.

            Then she went downstairs, smiled at Davis, and allowed him to escort her and her horse off the grounds, chattering happily to him all the while.

            Buffy slept soundly for the first time in weeks, and Spike lay awake looking at her.  She was so beautiful, her hair falling softly over her shoulders, her hand up by her face, curled around the pillow.  She was lovely.  And she was his.

            He stretched a little and glanced over at the baby monitor, which they'd left on to get used to the glow.

            And then he looked properly.

            And then he scrambled out of bed, pulled on his jeans, and raced next door.

            Glory's note said, "Not as invincible as you think, Precious.  I need to talk to you about Buffy and the baby.  It's very important.  Meet me at the Ten Bells tonight - I'll be there all night."

            He crumpled the note in his fist and threw it out of the window, wanting to yell but afraid of waking Buffy.  He didn't want to see Glory - if he did, he might kill her, but, oh God, if she knew something... If it was about that day when she'd hurt Buffy, if something else had happened they didn't know about, it could be damaging and he needed to know.

            "Bollocks," he said, going back into his room and pulling on his boots and a shirt.  He pressed kissed fingers to Buffy's hair, then left, walking out into the warm dark night.

            Willow and Tara slept curled together in the middle of a deliciously large bed, both naked, in deference to the heat as much as each other.  Outside the air was thick and heavy, the sun hadn't been out much and Tara said a storm was coming.

            "Wake me," Willow said, "if there's lightning."

            "Are you afraid of it?"

            "No, I like to watch it."

            "I don't like storms," Tara confessed.

            "Ah, baby, then I'll watch and you can hide," Willow pulled her girlfriend close, "right here."

            But it wasn't the storm that woke either of them.  It was the telephone.

            "Oh God," Willow said, "what if it's Joyce?"

            "I think that's an internal ring," Tara said.  "We'd better answer."

            Willow reached over and picked up.  "Hello?"

            "Willow?  It's Buffy.  I know it's the middle of the night, but I have a problem.  Could you come over?"

            Willow rubbed sleep out of her eyes.  "Isn't Spike there?  Or is this a, er, a girlie problem?"

            "No, it's - it's something different.  Can you come over?"

            Willow said she would and replaced the receiver, frowning.  "She wants me to go over."

            "It's the middle of the night!"

            "I know."  Willow pushed back the covers.  "So it must be important."

            She grabbed her pyjamas and pulled them on.  "Coming?"

            "I suppose so," Tara said, rather intrigued.

            They made their way through the dark house, which was slightly spooky when it was so empty of light and people, and even spookier when the distant rumble of thunder shook through the ancient corridors.  Willow felt for her girlfriend's hand as they walked, and Tara held it tight.

            Buffy was pacing her bedroom floor, and Spike was gone.  Willow started to ask what was going on, when Buffy pointed to the computer monitor set up on the far side of the room.  The lights on the computer gave off an eerie green glow.

            "Is that it?" Willow asked.  "You can't sleep for the glow?"

            "No," Buffy said.  "Look.  It's supposed to be showing the baby's room but it's not, and when I tried to check the connection it was showing something else in the, the loop or whatever.  Giles said you're really good with computers, can you fix it?"

            Willow gave her a look of incredulity.  This was what she'd been called out for in the middle of the night?

            "I'm not crazy," Buffy said.  "It's just I can't sleep anyway and - and I don't know where Spike's gone, he's not answering his cell, and there's something wrong, I know it."

            "It's okay," Tara said.  "Willow'll figure it out.  She's really good with computers and stuff."

            Willow nodded reassuringly and sat down at the computer.  She clicked through a few pages of code, frowning.

            "There's another device attached... I'm not sure how... Wait a sec..."

            She got up and left the room, and Tara was left smiling awkwardly at Buffy.

            "So, how's it going?"

            "Oh, great," Buffy said.  "My stepsister-in-law tried to kill me and my husband has gone missing.  My mother is in hospital and my sixteen year old sister is all alone nine thousand miles away.  All I need now is a miscarriage and everything will be great."

            "Oh," Tara said.

            "I'm sorry," Buffy gave her a smile, "I'm sort of on edge.  I tend to make things over dramatic."

            "It's okay, you're just worried," Tara said, and Willow came back in.  "What is it?  Did you figure it out?"

            Willow nodded, still frowning, looking vaguely puzzled.  "There is another device, and I'm not sure how it's connected - the signal is overriding the webcam... Hold on..."

            She tapped a few keys, clicked the mouse a few times, and a picture flickered up on screen.  "Oh, thank you-" Buffy began, and then she realised what the picture was.  "Is that the Ten Bells?"

            Willow and Tara looked at each other.  "Uh, maybe we got into the wrong loop," Willow said, and was about to close the window when Buffy's hand shot out and grabbed her wrist.

            "That's Glory."

            "Oh, is that her?"

            "She's pretty," Tara said doubtfully.

            "She's rank," Buffy said, and Willow nodded.

            "Really trashy.  What, is that riding outfit sprayed on?"

            "Well, yes," Tara said meekly, "I guess she's a bit unsubtle..."

            "Is that Spike?" Willow said, and there was a fabulous lightning strike at exactly the same moment.

            They watched Spike pick up a large tumbler of something highly potent and down it,  Glory was clearly flirting, touching Spike's sleeve, looking up at him adoringly.

            Willow and Tara were frozen.

            "She's just messing around," Buffy said.  "She's just doing it to piss me off, she's..."

            She stumbled backwards and grabbed the phone by her bed, and stabbed the redial button.  On screen, they all watched as Spike ignored the ringing phone on the pub table and Glory picked it up.

            "Hello?"

            "Glory?  Why do you have Spike's phone?"

            "Who is this?"

            "You know who it is.  I'm his wife.  Remember?"

            Glory smiled up at Spike, who was getting pissed and maudlin pretty quickly.  He'd been careless enough to leave his phone out on the table when he went to the gents, and it had taken only a few seconds for Glory to switch his SIM card for hers.  Her phone had been ringing silently all night for him, and he'd thought they were all Glory's calls.

            "Is there something I can do for you, sweetie?"

            "You can hand me over to him.  Right now."

            "I don't think that's going to be possible.  He said he doesn't want to speak to you.  Baby," she looked up at Spike, "I'm just gonna take this outside, where the signal's better?"

            He shrugged like he didn't care.

            "The hell you will," Buffy yelled, but they could already see her leaving the view on the computer screen.  "Willow, Tara, get me the number of that pub, I need to speak to Spike _now_."

            "I just told you, sweetie," Glory said, background noise fading away and rain drumming heavily above her as she stood in the pub's little vestibule, "he's not interested.  He's spent all night telling me what a godawful screw you are.  He fucked you tonight just to shut you up.  You think he likes boning a whale?"

            "Shut up," Buffy said, tears coming to her eyes.

            "He knows the baby's not his anyway," Glory went on blithely, "he doesn't really care.  As soon as it's born he's declaring it his legal heir and divorcing you."

            "Okay, you know what?" Buffy said.  "As soon as I've had this baby I'm gonna come and kick your ass for talking so much bullshit.  You've tried to split us up before and I don't know what your game is but-"

            "Did he try that little trick where he puts ice on the back of your neck?" Glory said, and Buffy shut up.  "He discovered it in college.  Man, we had some fun with that."

            She's making it up, Buffy told herself, but Glory's next question made her knees buckle and she collapsed onto the bed.

            "Did he do the thing with the coffee and the ice cube?  Wow, that was the best orgasm I have ever, ever had.  The bit where he rubs the ice right down over your-"

            "Shut up!" Buffy screamed.

            "Oh, sweetie baby, didn't he ever do that one on you?  I guess after he figured out about Riley he sort of lost interest, huh?  You haven't been screwing that much lately.  Even someone as horny as Spike can't bring himself to put it in a goddamn elephant like you.  Not that I mind, of course," she purred, "it's all to my advantage.  You know, last week, while you were watching Steel Magnolias with your lesbian friends and telling each other that at least you don't have diabetes, I was handcuffing your husband to the steering wheel in that big comfy car of his and screwing his brains out."

            "You're lying-"

            "Am I?  Ask him what he was doing this afternoon?  That gunshot?  Well, you know how he likes to play rough-"

            "You are talking so much crap-"

            "So tell me how my bra ended up in your baby's nursery?" Glory said, and Buffy covered the phone and said to Willow, "Go check.  The nursery."

            "What for?" Buffy closed her eyes.  "Lingerie."

            Willow frowned, but off she went, leaving Tara to sit and watch Spike getting drunker and drunker on the monitor.  A few seconds later Willow was back, anxiously holding up a rather tacky stripper-type bra.

            "You planted it there," Buffy said, her voice low and almost steady.

            "If that's what you want to tell yourself," Glory said, and sauntered back into the pub, unfastening her jacket as she did.  She walked up to Spike, turned him round to be in full view of the camera she'd planted earlier, and ostentatiously dropped her phone in his glass.

            Then she hooked an arm around his neck and kissed him and Spike, completely picked as a result of all the spiked drinks Glory had been feeding him, felt only a warm mouth on his and kissed her back.  His hands slipped under her open jacket and Buffy caught a glimpse of bare breast before she finally got to the computer and pulled out the power cable.

            For a few seconds, there was silence.  Willow and Tara didn't need to have listened to know what was going on.

            "Willow," Buffy said eventually, "did you bring a car?"

            "No, but Spike lent us one of the estate cars to drive while we're here..."

            Buffy nodded.  "Get your things and meet me at the car in five minutes.  All your things."

            "What's going on?" Tara asked nervously.  "You want us to leave?"

            "No, I want me to leave," Buffy said.  "I have to get out of here.  I have to leave this house.  I have to go.  I have to get out.  I have to leave."  She started looking around, her hands darting here and there.  "I need clothes.  Spare clothes.  And the things for the baby-"

            "You're not going into labour are you?" Willow asked in shock.

            "No!  I just have to get out!  We have to go.  I have to go.  Please, Will, Tara, help me?"

            She grabbed their arms and her grip was horribly strong.

            "We'll help you," Tara said, and Willow nodded, and then they both ran to their own room.

            "I think she's gone crazy," Willow said as she pulled on some clothes and threw her pyjamas into her suitcase.

            "I think she's just in shock," Tara said.  "She's just found out Spike's cheating on her-"

            "He was kissing her, that's not like real cheating," Willow said.

            "You ever kiss another woman and I'll consider it cheating," Tara said with rare sharpness.

            "I'm sorry, baby, I didn't mean - I just mean, he was really drunk and, and it's not like he's sleeping with her, right?"

            Tara looked worried.

            "Right?" Willow repeated.

            Tara couldn't think of anything to say.

            "Men are such bastards," Willow said, and slammed her suitcase shut.

            Spike realised what he was doing as soon as his hand went inside Glory's jacket.  Those were not Buffy's breasts - wait, that wasn't Buffy's hair, or her hands or her lips of anything!

            He shoved Glory away from him and stared in horror at her.  Everyone else in the pub cheered and she executed a little bow.

            Spike reached over the bar, grabbed the nearest bottle, and smashed it over Glory's head.

            The bar went silent as she slithered to the floor in a pool of blood and broken glass.  The landlord picked up his phone and dialled for the police.

            "So where are we going?" Willow asked as they bounced down the drive, Buffy holding onto herself and wincing.  The car Spike had lent Willow was one of the ancient rusting Defenders and any suspension it had ever had had died years ago.

            "How far are we from Yorkshire?"

            "We're in it.  Aren't we?"

            Tara nodded.  "But it's a big place.  Three counties."

            "Which one is Giles's cottage in?"

            "His shooting cottage?  North Yorkshire."

            Tara got out a map and squinted at it in the darkness.  There was no interior light in the car.

            "I don't think it's all that far," she said.  "If you can get to the, uh, A1, then I think it's not too far..."

            "Good," Buffy said, and gripped her seatbelt hard as they went over another pothole and she felt her whole body jar.

            When they got onto a regular road it was easier, and the three girls fell silent, Tara dozing in the back of the car, Buffy staring straight ahead along the motorway, trying not to think about how foolish she'd been.  All this time she'd thought Spike didn't mind not having sex, and all this time he'd been screwing Glory.  That vile little tramp!  When she'd confronted Buffy in the conservatory, it wasn't about family pride, it was about getting her lover back.

            'Precious,' she thought, and one of the Shakespeare quotes she'd absorbed came back to her.  'Wherefore speaks he this to her he hates?'

            Oh God, I've been so stupid.

            The storm was in full force, and Buffy's depressed and shocked mind was starting to think they'd be on the road forever when suddenly Willow took a turning down a horribly muddy road and Buffy spied something familiar.

            "This is it, we're nearly there."

            Except that last time she'd been here was with Spike.  The first time they'd slept together.  And the second, and the third, fourth, fifth... Buffy had lost count.  It had only been one night.

            She pressed her hand to her huge belly.  She wondered if it had been then they'd made the baby - oh, but no, it must have been later.  In that tiny cottage by the loch in Scotland.  They'd spent weeks doing very little but eat, sleep and make love.  In fact, that was all they ever seemed to do.  There was no connection.  Who was she fooling?  They knew nothing about each other.  All she knew was that he had dreadful punky taste in music and he'd been shagging his stepsister.

            "This is it," she said as Willow stopped the car.

            "This is it?" Tara said doubtfully.  "It looks kinda... rustic."

            "It's a little bit basic," Buffy said, "but it'll - oh, God!"

            She gripped the car door and slithered down to the mud, the rain lashing her face.

            "What?" Willow rushed around in alarm and Tara scrambled from the car.  "Buffy, what is it?"

            Buffy looked down.  It was dark, and she was muddy, but she knew that the dark stain on her skirt was blood.  "I think that was my first contraction," she whispered.

            Willow and Tara stared at each other in horror.

            "Can I get inside?" Buffy pointed to the cottage, which was tantalisingly close.  The girls pulled her to her feet and half carried her into the tiny stone building, which had a fireplace and a big stone sink, and a bed in one corner.  Tara flicked on the stark, bare bulb, and they laid Buffy down on the bed.  She was covered in mud and blood and neither of them were sure if it was rainwater that soaked her face, or sweat.

            "You get everything in from the car," Willow said to Tara, "I'll call 911."

            "999," Buffy corrected.  "I don't think it's that bad.  I mean, aren't you supposed to be in labour for hours after your first contraction?  My mom said with me it was a day and a half," she said, and gave a little smile, hoping desperately that it'd be different with her.  Just a couple of hours, a bit of pushing, and a nice healthy baby she could take away from Spike and never allow him to see.  Just like she'd planned in the first place.  Stupid men, getting in the way of all her plans-

            "Damn," Willow muttered.

            "What?"

            "I can't get any signal on my phone.  Does your have a different network?"

            But Buffy's phone didn't work either, and when Tara slammed the door shut against the storm and handed hers over, it was dead.

            "I don't suppose this place has a phone line?" Willow asked without much hope.

            "It doesn't even have hot water," Buffy said.  "The toilet is in a hut outside."

            "Well, then I - I guess we should find some wood for that fire and heat up some water," Tara said.

            "What for?"

            "I d-don't know, in films they always get hot water when someone's in labour."

            "And scissors," Willow said.

            "Oh God," Buffy said, and grabbed hold of Willow's hand as another contraction shot through her.

            "Is she supposed to be bleeding like that?" Tara whispered to Willow as she folded Buffy's bloody clothes in a pile by the sink.

            "I don't know.  I'm not sure.  I don't know anything about having babies," Willow whispered back.

            "Me neither.  Except you have to be really clean, because of all those infant deaths in Elizabethan London from midwives not washing their hands, remember?"

            Willow nodded and managed a brief smile, remembering the essay.

            "It's kinda hard to keep clean with all the blood, though," she said, glancing back at Buffy, who lay with her eyes closed, the sheets and blankets around her bright red and soaked through.

            "Have you tried 999 again?"

            Willow nodded.  "I think the storm must have brought a transmitter down or something.  I'm getting nothing here."

            "We could try to get her in the car and-"

            Willow shook her head.  "It's nearly out of gas.  We'd get down the drive and that's it.  We're stuck here."

            "Willow?" Buffy said, clutching her friend's sleeve, "what time is it?"

            "It's nearly four."

            "How long have I been in labour?"

            "Um, about six hours."

            "That's not so bad."  She closed her eyes again and gripped Willow's hand hard.  "I think that's another one," she whispered, and her whole body tensed and jerked and she cried out, tears leaking all over.  "They're getting closer, right?"

            "Yeah," Willow said, "closer."

            But they'd been getting closer for hours, and as the storm got fiercer, so did Buffy's pain.  She knew something was wrong, because she was bleeding so much and she was in more or less constant pain.  It was getting so she could hardly tell when a contraction happened, because it was just a little more pain in a big world of Ow.

            "Any luck with the phones?"

            Willow shook her head.  "We'll keep trying."

            "It's getting light," Buffy said.

            "Yep."

            "Why is it getting light?"

            "Uh, because it's morning?"

            "But, but no baby..."

            "Well, you said your mom was in labour for a day and a half," Willow said.

            "She didn't... It was all gradual... When she had Dawn, I remember," Buffy fought the wave of pain crushing her, "there was pain and then... she pushed and then..."

             "I'm not sure you're ready for the pushing," Tara said.

            "But, but it's so close, they're so close..."

            Willow and Tara exchanged a look.  They didn't need to be medical experts to know something was very wrong.

            "Oh God," Buffy moaned, gripping Willow's hand so hard something snapped, "oh..."

            Willow bit down on her lip, determined not to cry out, and Tara grabbed her wrist, "Oh God, baby, is something broken?"

            But Willow wasn't paying attention to her hand.  Buffy's head was lolling to one side.  Her eyes were closed.  She wasn't moving.

  



	8. Chapter Seven: Loss

Chapter Seven:  Loss

            Spike awoke in a jail cell, his head thumping and his mouth dry.

            "Oh, fucking marvellous," he groaned.

            "Good morning," said a copper, looking in through the door.

            "What am I doing here?" Spike asked, and the compulsion to ask 'Don't you know who I am?' was strong.

            "Don't remember, sir?"

            "No, I bloody don't.  But I didn't do it."

            "Actually, sir, all eyewitness accounts say you did.  But the lady is not pressing charges, so-"

            "Lady?  What lady?  Did I hurt someone?"

            "Your stepsister, sir.  You smashed a bottle on her head."

            Spike covered his eyes.  Glory.  Of course.  "Fucking little cow deserved it," he said.  "She said... she said Buffy'd been sleeping around."

            "Buffy?" the policeman looked confused.

            "My wife."

            "You married a woman called _Buffy_?"

            Spike glared at him.  "If someone accused your wife of having someone else's baby, wouldn't you smash something on her head?"

            "The someone, or my wife?"

            "The someone - look, just let me out of here, will you?"

            The policeman stood back.  "You're free to go."

            Spike hauled himself to his feet.  "What about her?"

            "Who?"

            "Glory, you twat.  Where is she?"

            "Still at the hospital, I believe."

            "Not gonna die, is she?"

            "I don't think so."

            "Oh.  Well, never mind."

            "Oh, thank God," Tara clutched the phone to her ear.  "It's ringing."

            "Probably gonna run out of battery next," Willow said, her injured hand in her lap, her good hand stroking Buffy's damp hair.

            "Yes, I need an ambulance," Tara said into the phone.  Quickly.  I think my friend might be dying.  She went into labour last night, she was bleeding heavily and now she's lost consciousness... Yes, she has a pulse, but it's not very strong... She's breathing... I don't know, Will, can you hear the baby's heartbeat?"

            Willow pressed her ear to Buffy's huge stomach.  "I can't hear anything."

            Tara's face was wet with tears as she put the phone down.  "They'll be here soon.  If there's no heartbeat, I don't think it's good."

            "But Buffy will be okay?"

            Tara nodded, although she really wasn't sure.  "She's strong, and she'll be..."

            They sat in silence, holding each other, trying not to look at Buffy's body.

            "My lord," Davis said as Spike strode into the lobby of his house, "we've been trying to contact you all night-"

            "Did you try the local clink?"

            "Eventually, sir, they said you were asleep."

            "Passed out through massive induction of alcohol," Spike corrected dryly.  "And now I feel like hell.  Where's Buffy?  She still in bed?"

            "Well, sir," the butler was twisting his hands, "that's what we needed to tell you."

            Buffy didn't know where she was.  Unconsciousness brought her breif releif from pain, but every now and then something vicious would tug her back up into semi-consciousness, where everything hurt and violent pain stabbed right through her body.  Vaguely, she was aware of periodic voices, of blood, of frantic medical speak, of people touching her, machines, implements, needles, knives...

            When she regained full consciousness it was, as before, because of the awful pain.  Her hands travelled immediately down to her stomach and she gagged when she realised it was flat and soft.  It burned with pain, but there was nothing there.  No baby.  The baby was gone.

            The baby was dead.

            Giles awoke to the ringing of a telephone.  It was too damn early for a call - but then it might be something to do with Buffy, or Joyce...

            He went downstairs and picked up the receiver.  "Hello?"

            "Rupert.  Do you know where she is?"

            "Who?  Spike, is that you?"

            "Yeah.  Do you know where Buffy is?"

            "No, I thought - is she not at home?"

            "No, she's bloody well not at home."  Giles heard something smash in the background.  "She sodding left last night and I can't get an answer out of her bloody phone.  The girls went too.  I don't know where she is, Giles."

            He sounded horribly, desperately worried.  "Have you tried calling Willow or Tara?"

            "Don't have their sodding numbers, do I?"

            "No, right.  Well, I'll call them.  Perhaps she went into early labour - have you checked the hospital?"

            "Oh, do you think?  I hadn't thought of that.  No, Giles, she's not at the sodding hospital."

            Giles wasn't sure what to say.  "I'll - I'll try the girls, and I'll, er, get back to you..."

            But before he could dial, the phone started ringing again.  He picked it up, "Spike, I said-"

            "Giles?"

            He had to think for a moment before he realised it wasn't Buffy.  "Dawn?"

            Her voice was very quiet.  "Do you know where Buffy is?"

            "No," Giles sighed, "but I'm trying to find out.  Have you spoken to Spike?"

            "No, I called there but they said he was busy and Buffy wasn't there... Giles, it's Mom," Dawn said, and Giles suddenly felt cold.  "I think she's dying."

            Buffy woke again and found that she was in a dark room, hooked up to hospital instruments.  She looked around, just in case, but there was no crib by the bed.

            Eyes burning with tears, she turned her head to the wall and cried herself back to sleep.

            Light woke her, peeping in through her eyelids, and with it came the sound of distant voices.  She tried to sit up and decided that one of the tubes sticking in her probably contained some kind of pain releif, because she wasn't in such horrible pain any more.  She wore a hospital gown and nothing else.  She was alone in the room.

            Buffy wiped her sore, tear-crusted eyes and tried to work out a plan of action.  Right.  She wasn't going back to Spike - that was a given.  The only reason they'd been together was the baby and now there was no baby, so it was stupid trying to go back.  Best she ended it now, rather than trying to live with him and ending up hating him even more.  Buffy didn't think she could live with someone who'd cheated on her, even if he did promise to change.  It would just never be the same.

            She'd go back home.  She could finish her course and work in the gallery, yes, that would be a good idea.  Her mom was probably still not feeling too good, so until she was completely recovered Buffy knew she'd have to take charge.  She started to feel a little stronger at the thought.  She needed a purpose - these last months in England she'd just been bored and frustrated.  She wasn't cut out to be a wife or a mother...

            She sniffed resolutely.  There was no point crying for something she'd never had.  It wasn't as if she'd lost a born baby: she still didn't even know what sex it had been.  Maybe they could tell her.  Maybe she could bury it, get some closure.

            The door opened and it was a nurse, a cheerful Jamaican woman who seemed delighted to see Buffy awake and alert.  She checked her pulse and temperature and a whole lot of other things, and asked Buffy if she'd like to see her friends.

            "Friends?"

            "The girls who brought you in."

            Willow and Tara.  Buffy remembered - the awful endless night in Giles's cottage.  Who knew, maybe if they'd got out sooner then the baby could have been saved... maybe... Or maybe it was already dead and that was why it all hurt too much.  Maybe it was Glory.  Maybe it was Buffy.  She didn't know.  It hurt to ask.

            "Yes," she said.  "I would like to see them."

            Willow and Tara rushed in, and Buffy was horrified to see Willow's hand heavily bandaged.  "Did I do that?"

            "You are kind of freakishly strong," Willow said.  "Don't worry about it.  It's not my writing hand anyway."

            "How are you feeling?" Tara asked, and Buffy considered lying.  But then she realised that she couldn't lie to someone who'd been through what they'd been through together.

            "Pretty crappy," she said.  "I mean, I think I'm on a lot of drugs 'cos I know it hurt more earlier, but really I think I could do with another kind of drug.  You think they have anything to stop me crying?"

            "Do you want to see him?" Tara asked.  "That might help."

            "No!  No, I - I can't.  Not right now.  I just can't.  I..."

            "Oh, sweetie," Willow stroked her hair, "I'm so sorry."

            "It will get better," Tara offered.  "My mother died when I was seventeen.  It's really awful, but eventually it does get better."

            "That whole time thing?" Buffy said, thinking that it was hardly the same.  "Well, I reckon it's been a good few hours, but I still don't feel too much better."

            "You will," Willow said, looking pretty sniffy herself.  "And we're right here for you," she said, looking over at Tara, who nodded.  "Anything you need.  We thought maybe you might need a place to stay, so-"

            "I think I'm going to go back home."

            "But - back to Spike's?  I thought you-"

            "Nooo," Buffy said, "not there.  I really just don't think I can, well, ever see him again.  Has he called?  Does - does he know?"

            "I think he spoke to Giles," Tara said.

            "And he hasn't tried to come here?"

            "We weren't sure if you'd want him to know where you are," Willow said uncertainly.

            "No.  I don't.  I really don't think I could face Spike right now.  As soon as they let me out, I'm going back to Sunnydale.  Starting over.  New life for Buffy."

            "Well, that's good," Willow said.  "You're more upbeat."

            "If I stop I'll burst into tears," Buffy said.  "I think I still have all the hormones and stuff."

            "They said you might get really bad moodswings," Tara said, "while your hormones are sorting themselves out."

            "Yeah.  Well.  I think I know which direction most of them are going to swing in," Buffy said, feeling her eyes start to sting again.  "God," she sniffed, "it's just not _fair_."

            "I know, Buffy," Willow said.  "They say God just takes back the ones he loves."

            "What about the people down here who loved them?  What do we get for it?"

            "You get to remember them," Tara said.

            "Remember?  I never even - I mean, all I have to remember is nine months of pain and discomfort and worry and a failed marriage."

            The girls looked confused, but Willow said, "Yes, but at the end of that at least you have a baby to show for it."

            "But I don't," Buffy sobbed.  "I don't even have that."

            "Erm," Tara said.

            "Didn't they tell you?" Willow said.

            "Tell me what?"

            "Well, he's a little shaky right now, but they're pretty sure he's going to be fine."

            "Who?  Spike?"

            "William."

            "He's not Spike any more?"

            Willow and Tara exchanged another look.  "Was he going to be called Spike?"

            "That is a little, well, _odd_, Buffy."

            "What?"  Buffy stared.  "Okay, I'm grieving and hormonal, what's your excuse?"

            "We're not talking about Spike, your husband," Tara said slowly, realising, "we're talking about William.  Your son."

            Buffy froze.  The world stopped for a few seconds.

            "My what?"

            "Your son.  You were pretty out of it, Buffy, but I remember you saying you wanted to call him William."

            "I did?"  Was this so they could bury him with a name?

            "Yes.  They asked you what his name was and you-"

            In a flash, Buffy remembered.  "His name?  They were asking for the name of the father," she said, a half-remembered voice sliding through her brain.  She'd barely been conscious, but it seemed very important to establish Spike as the father, not Riley like Glory kept saying.

            "No, they were asking for the baby's name."

            "I think it suits him," Tara said.

            Buffy tried to put all of this together, and came up with, "My son is called William?"

            "Yes."  Willow beamed.  "You want to see him?  They had to put him in a special unit because he was kind of weak, but they said he's doing really well.  I'm sure they'd let you see him."

            "He's not dead?" Buffy croaked.

            "No, of course not!  Why did you-"

            Tara elbowed her girlfriend, and Willow shut up.  "I'll go get the nurse."

            The nurse said that of course Buffy could go and see the baby, so in a kind of daze Buffy was put in a wheelchair and pushed through antiseptic corridors to a ward decorated with garish cartoon animals.  Small children limped about with broken limbs, babies cried, and Buffy clutched Willow's hand as they went towards a door marked Neonatal.  Behind it were half a dozen glassy cribs, incubators, each one containing a baby with lots of tubes attached.  It was very warm.

            The nurse wheeled Buffy in and took her to an incubator containing the tiniest baby Buffy had ever seen, small and pink and chubby, with wisps of dark hair and tiny, tiny little eyelashes.

            "This is your son," the nurse said, "William."

            Buffy stared, entranced.  "But - but I thought he was - I woke up and - all last night, it-"

            "It wasn't last night," the nurse gave a big smile, "it was the night before.  You've been out all day.  Your baby's twenty-three and a half hours old."

            "Oh," Buffy said, looking down at him, unable to think of anything else to say.  "Oh."

            She was allowed to touch him and talk to him, and after a doctor came by to check on the baby, allowed to finally pick him up and hold him.  Buffy cried for hours and hours, not sure whether it was hormones or genuine emotion and not caring, either.  Baby William felt incredibly right in her arms, and Buffy knew she would never, ever get tired of loving him.  Everything else in the world went away, and it was just her and William, and total, unconditional love.

            Eventually she was told to go back to her room and rest, and she could go back to see him later.  Babbling to Willow and Tara about the total fabulous of her baby, how he was the best baby, the cutest, the smartest - already, he was a genius, because he'd opened his eyes and looked right at her while she was talking to him - how much she totally, utterly, completely adored him, Buffy got happily back into bed and let the doctors inspect the damage William had done while he was trapped in her womb.

            "Stupid damn placenta," she said, when she was told that it had been blocking the baby's exit.  "It's just dumb.  Totally gets in the way of everything."

            They checked over her stitches - they'd had to perform an emergency C-section as soon as they got to her - and said she was healing well.

            "Well, I'm a strong healthy gal," Buffy said.  "William's strong too.  He'll be fine in no time.  Probably we'll wake up tomorrow and he'll already be crawling around.  We'll have to catch him before I can take him home."

            The doctor smiled.  "It might be a while before he can leave the hospital," he said, "although with any luck he might be out of the incubator soon."

            Just as the doctor was about to leave, there was a knock on the door.  "Visiting hours are nearly over," the doctor said.

            Buffy stretched to see past him and broke into a smile.  "Let him in," she begged, "please."

            Giles kissed her cheek and gave her a tired smile.  "I came as soon as I could," he said.  "How's William?"

            "He's perfect," Buffy gushed.  "Well, not perfect, he's still really tiny and he needs to gain a load of weight before they'll let him out, so I guess I have to get him some doughnuts and hamburgers to eat, huh?"

            He smiled.  "And how are you?"

            "I'm not so bad," Buffy said.  "Better than I was when I woke up.  Now I've seen him."  She didn't want to tell him she'd thought the baby was dead.  It seemed really foolish now.

            "And," he paused, "what about Joyce?"

            "Oh, God," Buffy clapped her hand to her mouth, "I haven't even _called_ yet!  I'm pretty sure Dawn said she was in the hospital, but maybe I can get the number for her there - Giles, it'll be a hospital-to-hospital call!"

            "Buffy," Giles interrupted, not seeming to find her joke funny, " didn't they tell you?"

            "Tell me what?"  Buffy was still smiling, composing in her head what she was going to tell Joyce.

            "Your mother... died yesterday.  There were complications in surgery.  The tumour had spread more then they thought, it was impossible to totally remove.  I don't know yet completely what happened.  Dawn was understandably distressed when she called me."

            Buffy found it hard to breathe.  "Mommy," she said.

            Giles touched her hand and she threw her arms around him.  That's what Willow and Tara had been talking about.  Mom, oh God, Mom...

            When the circumstances were explained, the doctors agreed to discharge Buffy as soon as possible, and she left the hospital within a few days, got on a plane, and took as many sleeping tablets as she could without killing herself.  Part of Buffy wanted to slide down into nothingness, to just tip the whole packet of tablets down her throat.  But then she remembered William, safe in his incubator in the hospital, and knew she had to live for him.  Besides, Giles was with her, and he was relentlessly upbeat.

            Xander met her at the airport.  He was quiet, not sure of what to say, his usual jokes completely useless in the face of such depression.

            "How's William?"

            "He's okay," Buffy said.  "I called when we got off the plane.  He's gaining weight.  He should be allowed out soon."

            "Can't wait to see him."

            "Me neither."

            Dawn was a dissolving mass of tears, desperately glad to hand over all responsibility to Buffy.  The funeral had mostly been arranged with Xander and Anya's help, so all Buffy really had to do was hold herself together long enough to get through it.

            It took Spike a while to track down Joyce Summers's funeral.  No one in Buffy's camp was speaking to him at all and he suspected it was just some ingrained public school courtesy that made Giles tell him in the first place.

            His sister Harmony used to live just outside Sunnydale, but since she'd discovered her latest husband, a rich doctor, boning his secretary, she'd moved back to LA.  So he had to drive around all the cemetaries and funeral parlours before he recognised Xander's rather dull car outside one of them and made his way between the graves to the flock of mourners crowding round Joyce's disappearing coffin.  They dispelled as he got closer, no one giving him a second glance, and Spike thought for a second that there were definite advantages to wearing so much black.

            Xander and Anya walked right by him, and Dawn, sobbing, clinging onto Giles, nearly broke his heart.  But it was Buffy who caught his attention, standing there alone watching dirt being shovelled over her mother's body in its shiny wooden box, not crying, her body still, her back straight.

            "Buffy," he said, and she flinched.  Didn't look at him.

            "What are you doing here?"

            "Came to pay my respects."

            "Can you afford that?"

            He didn't bite.  "Are you alright?"

            Buffy flicked her eyes scornfully at him.  "Peachy."

            "I mean-"

            "Can you go now, Spike?"

            He stared.  "What?"

            "Go.  Now.  Please."

            Momentarily at a loss, he eventually managed to say, "The baby-"

            "There is no baby."

            Silence.

            "The baby died, Spike," Buffy said harshly.  "There's nothing to keep you here."

            Shocked, he reached out to her.  She must be in so much pain.

            But Buffy pushed him away.  "Could you just _leave_?" she said, emotion high in her voice, and Spike tried to think of something to say to her.  But there was nothing - nothing she'd listen to, anyway.

            He took one last look at her, and walked away.

            Buffy waited until he was gone before she let herself cry.


	9. Chapter Eight: Oh death, where is thy st...

Chapter Eight: Oh death, where is thy sting, oh grave, thy victory?

            (_AN: Just in case you're wondering, the above lyric and the title for Ch. 3 are part of a slightly macabre WWI troop song which goes 'The bells of hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling, for you but not for me. The bells of hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling, for you but not for me. Oh death, where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling?  Oh grave, thy victory? The bells of hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling, for you but not for me.'  Cheerful, eh?  I guess that's what comes of living in several feet of mud for what you certainly know are going to be the last few months of your life_)

            "Hey there, Dawnster," Xander greeted her as she carried the baby's car seat down the drive.  "Ready for school?"

            "Like I'm ever ready."

            "Well, do you have your lunch and your pencils, and some little bits of paper to soak in ink and flick at the other kids?"

            Dawn smiled.  "Always."

            "Then you're ready."

            She strapped William's seat in the back, clicked the handle back in place, and got into the front seat.  "Okay.  Take me to torture-ville."

            "High school is not that bad, Dawnie."

            "If this is going to be one of those 'Best years of your life' speeches, forget it.  Principal Wood does those every day and it makes me want to punch him.  I'm like, woah, you mean it gets worse?  Hand me that axe over there."

            Xander smiled.  "I mean, you just have to remember all the stuff, like dating and stuff, that you can do."

            "Speaking from experience?"

            "Well, kinda not so much..." He caught her mischievous expression and rolled his eyes.  "Okay, less of the teasing the man who's driving you."

            "Okay.  All right.  I'm sorry, Jeeves."

            Xander made a face.  "Jeeves was a butler.  Brains was a chauffeur."

            "Why was he called Brains?"

            "Because he was really dumb, Dawn, why do you think?"

            She got out at the entrance of Sunnydale High and waved goodbye.  "My friend Janice over there thinks you're hot."

            "She does?"  Xander preened a little.

            "Sure.  But then I told her you were married, and now she just thinks you're old."

            "Thanks, Dawnie."

            He set off again, this time aiming for a building with lots of playsets outside, swings and slides and carefully padded soft flooring.  He pulled up, took William from the back seat, and carried him into the nursery.

            "Okay, you know, kid, when they told you to gain weight at birth, I don't think they meant for you to carry on at the same rate," he said, hefting the carseat up into both arms.  "What do you weigh, now, about four hundred pounds?"

            The woman at reception smiled.  "William never stops growing.  And he's always hungry."

            "Kid after my own heart.  Okay.  As far as I know, Buffy's coming to pick him up tonight but it might be late.  She said she'll give you a call if it's gonna be after six."

            "That's great.  See you tomorrow, Xander."

            Xander waved goodbye to his godson and drove off to work.  He didn't mind taking Dawn and William to school at all - in fact, he quite liked it.  He'd seen Anya gradually softening towards the idea of having children, since William had come into their lives six months ago, and to Xander it didn't seem like a bad plan at all.  William wasn't so bad.  Granted, he didn't have to get woken in the night by him, or worry about his future, or buy him new clothes every five minutes, but he still kinda liked the idea of having his own children.

            It was Buffy he was worried about.  Since she'd inherited the lease on the gallery, she'd been working twelve hour days there.  She couldn't afford to employ any other staff than the one woman who came in for a few hours over lunch, and she knew next to nothing about art.  The gallery was barely breaking even, but Buffy refused to give it up.  Joyce had built it from scratch, and they all wanted to see it succeed.  Xander just wasn't sure if Buffy was doing the right thing by keeping hold of it herself.

            Buffy stretched out over her desk and held her eyelids open with her fingers.  William was teething and often woke her up for what seemed like an urgent reason, but was just a request for attention because his gums hurt.  Still, at least he didn't want feeding in the middle of the night any more.  She'd had two whole weeks of uninterrupted sleep.  For the first few months Buffy had been in a permanent state of exhaustion and Dawn and Xander had conspired to force her to stay at home and get some sleep while they looked after William.

            Buffy had read somewhere that for each hour of sleep lost each night, an extra night was needed to make up.  She figured she needed to sleep for about four years, solid, just to keep up.

            She wasn't even aware she'd fallen asleep until the phone shrilled, jerking her awake.

            "Summers Gallery," she yawned, "how can I help you?"

            It was one of her regular artists who was due to have a showing next week.  He was cancelling.  He said his sister was sick, but Buffy could tell by his tone that nothing was wrong.  He just didn't want so exhibit in a gallery that was doing so badly.

            She replaced the phone and considered crying, but she was too exhausted.

            The day was long and she didn't make any money.  Eventually six o'clock came around, but there was still a stack of paperwork to be done.  There was always paperwork to be done, and she never wanted to do it.  She wandered around the high, well-lit space with its familiar - too familiar - collection of paintings and small sculptures, feeling her mother everywhere she went.

            "God, Mom, why can't I make this work?  I tried being a student, and that didn't work out.  I tried being a viscountess and look at the mess I made of that.  I'm not even sure what kind of job I'm doing of being a parent.  You never said it was easy, but oh my God, does it have to be this hard?"

            She didn't see the old DeSoto parked across the street, a pale blonde head turned in her direction.  She just closed up the gallery, and by the time she left, the DeSoto was long gone.

            Last time Spike had had a quarrel with Buffy it had been Harmony and Darla who made him get back together with her.  This time they didn't hold back in telling him what an idiot he'd been.

            "Hey, doesn't Glory get any blame in this?"

            "Next time I see Glory, I'm going to drop-kick her lopsided ass," Darla said.  "But you were damn stupid as well."

            "Yeah, Spikey," Harmony said, "she needed you then and you should have stuck around."

            "She needed me?  Didn't I need her?  She told me to leave."

            "Her mother had just died," Darla rolled her eyes, "on top of which she was full of baby hormones."

            "What baby?" Spike said bitterly.

            "Precisely," Darla said.

            "She was bound to be miserable," Harmony said.  "You should have stayed and been nice to her."

            "I am not sodding nice," Spike stormed.

            "We'd noticed."

            "I think you should apologise to her, Spikey."

            Darla nodded.

            "Oh, sod off," Spike snapped, and stomped out to his car.  He sat there for a while, brooding, then he put the car in gear and squealed down the drive.

            "Liquor store?" Darla suggested.

            "Liquor store," Harmony agreed.

            Spike got to the liquor store, sat outside for a while and looked at the special offers in the window.  He'd got to know them all pretty well.  For the last six months he'd been almost perpetually drunk.  On the rare occasions when he'd been sober the hangover had been so bad he'd immediately started drinking again.  He consumed his own bodyweight in cigarettes every day.  The mankiest bars in LA came to recognise him as a regular.  When the bars shut, he went to the liquor store.

            Only in the last week his sisters had been at him to clean himself up.

            "Stop drinking," Harmony said.

            "Stop smoking," Darla opened a window.

            "Stop ordering me around."

            "You are going to kill yourself with all this," Harmony told him.

            "So?"

            At that Darla got pissed off and slapped him.  "Stop being so bloody miserable," she said.  "So your wife left you.  Get a divorce."

            "I don't want a sodding divorce."

            "Why?" Harmony said with rare perception, "because then you might have to actually get on with your life?"

            So for a week he'd been sober, and it was hideous.  This was the first time he'd been allowed out without a chaperone, and where had he come?  The liquor store.

            In Sunnydale.

            He had no idea what made him come all the way out here.  But here he was, sitting outside a liquor store that just happened to be opposite a certain gallery, chainsmoking, watching through the artfully distressed windows as Buffy wandered around inside, tantalisingly hidden from him.

            Right.  Spike made up his mind.  Tonight he'd get a hotel room in Sunnydale and clean himself up properly.  Then he'd go and see her.  He had no idea what he was going to say, but he figured some flowers wouldn't hurt.

            Right.  Plan.

            He looked back at her, stretching up her arms, dropping her head back in a yawn, and set off.  Operation Buffy was in motion.

            As soon as Buffy put her head on the pillow the alarm rang, or that was what it felt like.  She dragged herself out of bed and went into her mom's old room to wake William up.  She fed him, bathed him and put a clean diaper on him.  Then she got in the shower, pulled on some random clothes and fastened her hair up while she went downstairs to get breakfast ready.

            Dawn was already up, eating Cheez Doodles for breakfast.  Buffy rolled her eyes.  Sometimes Dawn was like an extra parent: mature, responsible, bright, sympathetic.  And sometimes, Buffy thought, watching her sister crunch a Doodle like Bugs Bunny, it was like having two kids.

            "So tonight," Dawn said through a mouthful of food, "I'm going to Xander and Anya's to watch movies.  Anya has some of that Greek herbal face pack stuff and she says I can use it."

            "Cool," Buffy said.  "Will you need a ride home?"

            "Well, it depends on how drunk we all get.  I'm joking, Buffy, they don't even drink while I'm there."

            "Glad to hear it," Buffy said, thinking that right now a long cold drink would go down very nicely.  "Okay, I'm supposed to be meeting with that girl who makes the rabbit sculptures-"

            "The ones that scare Anya?"

            "Yep.  It might go on late.  So can you..." She looked pleadingly at Dawn, while waving William's hand appealingly.

            Dawn stamped her foot.  "I was supposed to be having a kid's night," she said.

            "And I'm supposed to be making money.  Dawn, you know I'd have him if it wasn't for the client meeting.  Please.  She could make us a lot of money."

            As it happened, the bunny girl, as Buffy helplessly thought of her, brought in a new load of sculptures that were even more frightening than the last.  They'd never sell.  William burst into tears if he ever saw one.

            The bunny girl stayed late, arguing with Buffy about why her work wasn't selling, and threatening to go somewhere else, which Buffy thought might be the best idea to come out of their conversation.  By the time she left it was dark, and Buffy still had paperwork to do.

            She left the gallery, yawning and stumbling across the icy road to her car.  It was midwinter, unusually cold, and some of the streets had patches of black ice on them.

            Buffy didn't see the slick patch in the middle of the road until she'd already skidded on it, going down with a horrendous crack of her ankle, head smacking into the ice.  The world went dark and she lay still.

            Spike came out of the grocery store already lighting up a cigarette - California state law be damned - just in time to see the Mack truck rounding the corner at a slightly fearsome speed.  In the same instant he saw the crumpled body in the middle of the road and thought for a dreadful second that Buffy had thrown herself there on purpose.

            And then he skidded on the ice as he ran to her, and realised she'd fallen.  He grabbed her and yanked her out of the road just as the truck went steaming past, honking its horn loudly at the stupid couple playing silly buggers in the middle of the road.

            "Buffy," Spike shook her.  "Buffy!  Can you hear me?"

            Her eyelids fluttered, her lips moved.

            "Buffy, can you move at all?"  He grabbed at her feet, her slightly worn boots, pulled one of them off and she yelped in pain.

            "Guess that means your back's not broken," he said peering at her lower leg in the darkness, "although it looks like your ankle is.  I'm gonna take you to the hospital, alright?"

            But Buffy had already passed out.

            Spike carried her to his car and fastened her in, opened the window to clear out some of the smoke-clogged air, and set off for the hospital, glad he was driving an automatic because it made talking on his phone easier.

            He wasn't sure if he still had the right number - after all, they could have moved somewhere smaller.  But Buffy's voice rang out of the answerphone, and Spike closed his eyes for a second as he listened to the message.  Relentlessly perky.  Damn her.

            "Hey, niblet," he said.  "Obviously you're not home.  Listen - it's Spike, by the way - I just went to see your sister and she had an accident - nothing serious, love, she just slipped on the ice.  But she's going to need X-rays, I'm taking her to the hospital.  The, er, Sunnydale General.  It could be a late one, bit, so I just thought I'd let you know where she is."

            He paused, then added his mobile number.  Then he chucked the phone in the doorwell and looked over at Buffy, who was unconscious still, head lolling, the streetlights flickering across her face.  Dammit.  He was hoping she might have got really horribly fat or ugly or broken out in disfiguring acne or got the pox or something while he'd been away.  But no.  She was still annoyingly beautiful, and he still really wanted her.

            Damn her.

            Dawn waved goodbye to Xander and let herself in.  The house was dark and Buffy's car was gone - this really was a late night for her.  She put the baby to bed, got into her pyjamas and took her shirt downstairs to soak away the pizza stain it had gained tonight.

            The answer machine was flashing.

            "Hey, niblet..."

            Dawn dropped her shirt.

            She listened to the message again, her heart thumping.  X-rays?  Accident?  Oh God, Buffy!  Dawn couldn't take losing anyone else.

            Her hands shook as she picked up the phone and dialled the number Spike had left.  Nothing.  It didn't even connect.  He'd kidnapped her!

            Quickly, she got the phone book and dialled the hospital, babbling at the receptionist to know if a Buffy Summers had been admitted.  She had.  With a broken ankle and concussion.

            "Will she be okay?"

            "They're not serious injuries."

            Dawn forced herself to breathe.  "Can you - can you maybe put a call out for her to call me?"

            Five minutes later the phone rang, but when Dawn snatched it up and cried, "Buffy?" there was a pause.

            "No, niblet, it's me.  Buffy's still unconscious."

            It was so odd to hear his voice again.

            "What happened?"

            "I'm not sure - I didn't see it happen.  Far as I can tell, she slipped on the ice outside the gallery, knocked herself out.  She's going to be fine, love, really absolutely fine."

            "You're sure?"

            "Yes, love."  His voice was warm, reassuring.  Dawn had to remind herself that he'd broken Buffy's heart and never even tried to see William.  "How've you been, niblet?"

            "I-" in the distance, Dawn thought she heard William crying, and she moved out of the kitchen to listen better.  Yep.  Definitely crying.  "I'm okay," she said coolly as she went up the stairs, "but is it me you should be asking about?"

            "Well, I'm right here with Buffy and a team of medical experts," Spike said, and then he stopped.  "What's that noise?  Is that a baby?  That's not funny, Dawn."

            "No, it's not," Dawn agreed, realising William had a dirty diaper.

            "Is it the TV?  Switch it off."

            "Why?  You hate babies that much?"

            "No, I - look, love, it's not exactly easy to have to listen to it when - is it getting louder?"

            "Yes," Dawn said, "it's cold in here and he doesn't like that."

            There was a pause.

            "_Who_?" Spike said.

            "William.  Your son, Spike, or had you forgotten?"


	10. Chapter Nine: Heat

Chapter Nine: Heat

            For Buffy, it was wonderful.  Hours and hours of uninterrupted, deeply soft, dreamless sleep.  It was pure bliss.  Buffy knew that if there was a heaven, it would be lined with eiderdowns and there would be no alarm clocks or crying babies.

            Eventually she woke up, cocooned in softness and warmth, her head heavy, and she probably would have drifted off again if she hadn't tried to move her leg and realised there was a heavy cast around her ankle.

            She opened her eyes.  Darkness.  Warmth, and... Smoke?

            Panicked, she sniffed again.  Not fire smoke, cigarette smoke.  And leather.  And...

            "Spike?"

            The mattress shifted, and she realised he was sitting beside her, on top of the covers, fully clothed, chainsmoking.

            "Morning, pet."

            "It's still dark."

            "It's still morning."

            "Where - what the hell is going on?"

            He laughed softly.  "Good question.  Who's William?"

            Fear clutched at her.  Please God, she was dreaming and this was just her worst nightmare, not reality.

            "That's your name."

            "And also the name of a baby living at your house who you've been going around telling people is my son.  But it's a funny thing, love," he lit another cigarette from the one he was still smoking, "I could've sworn you said he was dead."

            Buffy closed her eyes, trying to breathe deeply but getting lungfuls of nicotine instead. "God, smoke much," she coughed.

            "My room," Spike said petulantly.

            "You sound like a teenager."

            "Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a smoking room in California?"

            So they were still in California, then.  That was something.  "This is a hotel?"

            "You can check out any time you like," Spike quoted bitterly, "but you can never leave.  Literally," he nudged her leg with his boot, through the duvet.  "More bed rest for you, Summers."

            "You want to tell me what happened?  Or do I have to work it out?"  Buffy pulled herself into a sitting position, wincing as she moved her ankle.  Then she realised she was only wearing her underwear - tatty knickers and a nursing bra that had gone grey in the wash - and hurriedly pulled the duvet up under her arms.

            Spike laughed.  "Nothing I haven't seen before."

            Buffy thought about the nursing bra.  "Sure about that?"

            "What's the scar on your stomach?"

            "C-section."

            "Did it hurt?"

            "Thought I was going to die."

            "Good.  Why'd you tell me he was dead?"

            Buffy closed her eyes.  Good question.  She didn't really know.

            "Because I wanted to hurt you," she said, the best explanation she could think of.

            "You nearly bloody killed me.  You know this is the first time I've been sober in six months?"

            "And there's me wondering why I didn't want you to be involved with my son."

            "_My_ son," Spike said fiercely.

            "I thought you thought he was Riley's."

            "Captain Cardboard?  Does he even have a penis?"

            "Yes, a reasonably large one," Buffy said, wondering when the conversation had got so surreal.

            "And the last time you slept with him was...?"

            "Over two years ago."

            "So why would I think-"

            "Glory seemed pretty adamant you did."

            "Glory," Spike said, "is on the waiting list for the seventh circle of hell.  After I beat the shit out of her I sent her back to her 'daddy' and put a surveillance team on her.  If she does one more thing to piss me off, such as breathe a little bit more than I'd like, I am going to go back home and wrap her slimy irrigated yellow guts around her neck."

            Buffy was silent for a bit, digesting this.  "Boy, I'm glad I didn't just eat."

            "Are you hungry?"

            "Not for the rest of my life."

            Spike was silent a bit.  "She told me about the camera," he said.

            "Did you beat it out of her?"

            "Yeah," Spike blew out a cloud of smoke contentedly.

            "Can I go beat it out of her?"

            He glanced at her, and he was smiling slightly.

            "Why am I here?" Buffy asked.

            "By the time they'd finished packaging you up at the hospital it was too late to take you home.  Dawn needs her sleep."

            "God, but I need to call her-"

            "I already did.  How do you think I knew about Will?"

            Buffy stilled, because that was a name only she and Dawn called the baby.  "I need to see him-"

            "He'll be fine, love, your sister's a grown-up."

            "He needs feeding."

            "She has plenty."

            "I'll need to take him to the nursery-"

            "It's covered, pet.  Your friend Xander's going to do it.  The little bit and I sorted it all out.  Go back to sleep."

            "Go back to sleep?  Spike, I don't know what the word 'responsibility' means to you, but I can't leave a sixteen-year-old in charge of a baby all night."

            "She's seventeen."

            Shit.  It was easy to forget.  Dawn's last birthday had been embarrassingly low-key.  There weren't exactly spare funds for birthday parties.

            "I still can't do it.  What if-?"

            "She'll be bloody fine," Spike snapped.  "Do you think you're the only person in the world with responsibilities?"

            "Oh, yes, I know just how seriously you take your respons-"

            "I still know about them," Spike said.  "There are other people in the world with other problems, Buffy.  It's not just you.  I know you've had a hard time of it lately but-"

            "You have no idea," Buffy hissed.

            "No?  I've no idea what it's like to lose a parent, have I?  None whatsoever.  Not when I'm old enough to know how to deal with it.  And have a loving, supporting network of friends to help me through the tough times.  You know, the day after my mother died I failed an exam and my dad confiscated my cricket bat as punishment?"

            "My heart bleeds for you."

            "You don't know what a hard time is, Buffy.  I have _bled_ for you.  I gave up everything for you, and this baby, who you didn't even let me know was alive."

            "What would you have done?  Taken him away to be the next Viscount Spellingdon?"

            "I don't give a fuck about that," Spike yelled, "and you sodding know it."

            "Oh, so I broke your heart?  Well, I'm sorry, Spike, but I still remember seeing you and Glory-" she couldn't stop seeing it "-canoodling like a bloody Benny Hill sketch-"

            "She set that up-"

            "And you were trying so hard to resist."

            "She spiked my drinks!"

            "I can't believe you were dumb enough to leave Glory alone with your drinks.  Spike, why were you even there?  Answer me that.  Was the whole 'Get off my property' thing just a sham to put poor bloated Buffy off the scent?"

            "If you think I'd ever touch that girl except to hurt her-"

            "_I saw you touching her_!"

            "_I was really drunk_!"

            "And whose fault's that?  Spike, just admit it, you were-"

            At that Spike snapped, grabbing Buffy and slamming her back against the headboard.  "I was what?" he yelled.  "You think I was shagging her?  She'd just spent all evening telling me you'd been shagging Riley and getting me drunk enough to believe her.  So I kissed her once - as soon as I realised what a disgusting bint she was I knew she wasn't you and I _stopped_."

            "Spike, get off me."

            "I did not sleep with her."

            "Fine," Buffy shoved at him, "just get off me!"

            "Say it."

            "Say what?  You're a-" Buffy started, but got cut off by Spike's mouth fastening to hers.  She might have resisted, but it had been so damn long since anyone kissed her - since anyone even touched her more than in passing - and Spike's taste of bourbon and cigarettes was intoxicating.  She knew she should be disgusted on every count, but God, he kissed good.

            "There's been no one but you," Spike said, holding her face in his hands.  "Since I met you.  Can't even think of anyone else."

            "Then it was nice of you to pop by and share that sentiment with me," Buffy said, succeeding in shoving him off her, but following him immediately, ignoring her heavy ankle as she swung over to straddle him.  Yes, she knew she should be mad at him, but did he have to look so good and taste so good and _feel_ so good?  Her blood was up now.  Buffy wanted action.

            "You bloody lied to me," he started unfastening her bra, and Buffy pulled on his t-shirt, pushing away his duster.

            "You kissed someone else.  You know you sent me into early labour?"

            "How the hell was that my fault?"

            "I was in shock."

            "You over-reacted.  Would it have killed you to stick around and sodding talk to me?"  He ran his hands over her bare breasts.  They were fuller than before, heavier.  Better.

            "Well, you know maybe it would.  Since the woman you were _snogging_ did actually try to kill me once already-"

            "She did not-"

            "Are you defending her?"

            Spike rolled Buffy onto her back again and kneeled up between her legs to take off his shirt and t-shirt.  She ran her hands over his body, leaner than before, so touchable it was untrue, and pulled him back down to her.  Her heart was pounding.

            "Are you defending telling me my son was dead?"

            "You-" God, he was kissing her neck, his mouth was hot, he felt so damn good, "-hurt me," his fingers on her nipples, teasing and playing with them, "and you-" now he was licking her breasts, her stomach, "-bloody-" his fingers were pushing her knickers away, "-know it _don't stop-_"

            Spike ran his tongue along the scar at the base of her stomach, pulled her knickers away and delved his hand into the heat between her legs.  Buffy moaned helplessly and pulled and pushed at his jeans, trying to get to the zip.  But she couldn't reach far enough, and eventually Spike rolled away from her, shoved the rest of his clothes to the floor, and came back all hot and naked and hard.

            His hands were all over her, rolling her nipples between his fingers, pulling her uninjured leg around his waist and dipping his fingers into the hot well of wetness that bubbled against his stomach, playing with her, stroking her, making Buffy gasp and writhe as she reached for him and found him big and stiff and ready for her.  God, all she wanted was to get him inside her, feel him moving against her, hard and slick and practiced and right.

            "Spike, do you have a-"

            He nodded and reached over for his duster, pulling a pack of condoms from the pocket.  "Learned to be safe," he said, and Buffy remembered why she hated him.  He was talking like Will had been an accident, a mistake.  Well, maybe he'd been unplanned but-

            "Jesus Christ," Buffy gasped as Spike drove into her, as big and hard as she remembered, maybe more so, pushing into her all the way, dropping his head and biting at her collarbone, making her cry out incoherently.

            He started moving, and Buffy moved with him, their dance achingly familiar, hot, heaving, and for a small eternity the only sound was their bodies sliding together, their breathing, the rustle of the shoved-aside bedclothes.

            Then Spike muttered, "Oh God, Buffy," and she broke, lifted her hips higher, trying to take him deeper, and dug her fingernails into his back.

            "Spike, harder, harder - oh God, deeper, oh - oh!"

            He drove into her so fast Buffy could barely breathe, her body slick with sweat, sliding against him, and she clutched at him and screamed and moaned and then her body shook with mind-numbing pleasure and she shrieked out her orgasm.

            Spike looked down at her, her body convulsing, her lips swollen and parted, and he bit her lower lip.  She gave a little moan and lay still, tousled and abandoned, and his mind vanished into soul-sucking joy, and he came too, shoving himself hard into her one last time then falling hard against her, completely spent.

            When he could move he rolled away and disposed of the condom - shows how much she trusts you, Spike - then came back to her.  God, she was beautiful.  He gathered her in close and kissed her mouth, but she barely responded.  She was asleep.

            Spike watched Buffy sleep, holding her close, and eventually his head grew heavy, his eyes grew dim, and he fell asleep with his body wrapped around hers.

            "Are you sure this is the right place?" Xander stared out through the rain at the expensive hotel.

            "That's what he said.  I'm pretty sure that's what he said."

            He frowned.  "Well, okay... I'm gonna have to double park here, Dawn, I'll circle the block and come back for you, okay?  Just wait for me under the canopy," he pointed to the entrance of the hotel.

            "Okay."

            She clambered out of the car, grabbed William's strolled and set it up deftly, through long practice.  She clicked his car seat into place - she was so glad she'd persuaded Buffy to get one like this - and fastened the clear rain shield over the lot.

            Then she crossed the road, getting thoroughly soaked as she did, and had to open the hotel door for herself, since the doorman barely looked at her.

            Inside, everyone turned up their noses at the bedraggled teenager with the baby.  Dawn ignored them and went to the front desk, where she had to wait before she got anyone's attention.

            The receptionist looked as if she never, ever got caught in the rain.  She was totally immaculate and her eyes travelled over Dawn's dishevelled appearance before asking doubtfully, "Can I help you?"

            "I'm here to see Sp - uh, Wil - Lord Dashwood," Dawn said eventually.

            "Lord Dashwood?"

            "Spellingdon.  Viscount Spellingdon."  She scrunched up her face.  "About 5'10", bleach blond hair, lots of leather.  Major hottie."

            "And you are?"

            "Dawn Summers.  His sister-in-law," she said emphatically.

            "Ah, Miss Summers," the receptionist gave her a sudden smile.  "Yes, he's expecting you.  You can go right on up."

            "I can?"

            "Yes.  Just ride the elevator to the top floor.  It's the only door up there."

            Rather doubtfully, Dawn pushed the stroller over to the elevator and waited with a very well-dressed couple, who gave her such snooty looks it took all her self control not to yell, "What, so you don't ever get caught in the rain?  And for your information, yes, I'm seventeen, but no, this is not my baby!  His mommy is a grown-up and his daddy is a lord!  So back off!"

            But instead she ignored them and just enjoyed their confusion when she pressed the button for the top floor.  Evidently it was the best place to have a room.

            When she got out she was faced with a small lobby where there was, indeed, only one door.  She squared her shoulders and knocked.

            Spike answered quickly, looking as dishevelled as she did.  He was wearing just his jeans and looked like he'd just got out of bed.  His usual platinum curls had dark roots - it suited him better, Dawn thought, trying to keep her eyes off his naked torso.

            "Hey, bit," he said, giving her a smile, and Dawn blushed and smiled back.  "Come in," he stepped back, and she pushed the stroller into the most luxurious room she'd ever seen.  There were sofas and tables and artistically placed lamps, and big windows offering a view over half of Sunnydale.  In the corner was a spiral staircase leading to a landing with several doors leading off it.

            "Is this a hotel room, or an apartment?" Dawn asked in awe.

            "Bit of both."  Spike willed his eyes away from the contents of the stroller, still hidden behind the rain hood.  "So... er, how've you been?"

            "Oh, you know, exhausted and humiliated."

            He raised his eyebrows.

            "People see a teenager with a baby and they assume..."

            "Ah."

            "Which is a joke, 'cos I haven't even dated anyone since before Mom died."

            Spike did not take the opportunity to point out to her that it took longer to make a baby than that, but nodded instead.  "Used to get the same kind of looks when I took Harm out," he said.  "You ever feel like just yelling at them, 'Hey, the kid's not mine!'?"

            Dawn nodded enthusiastically as she took the rain hood off and folded it away.  "Yes!  God, all the time.  I nearly did yell at this couple in the elevator-" she broke off as the phone in her pocket chirruped.  "Oh.  That's Xander.  I'm gonna be late for school."  She paused shyly and looked up at Spike.  "Is Buffy okay?  I mean, can I-"

            Spike nodded and gestured to the stairs.  "First door," he said, "but don't you dare wake her."

            Dawn went up and carefully opened the door.  Inside was a huge bedroom with a gigantic bed in the centre.  The covers were tousled enough for her to see that Buffy had a cast on her ankle, and was wearing nothing under the duvet.

            She came back down, trying not to smile.  "So let me guess, you two were with the talking all night?"

            Spike smirked.  "Thing with Buffy is you have to know the right language," he said cryptically, and Dawn rolled her eyes.

            "Be nice to her.  And don't wake Will, or he'll never get back to sleep.  I mean, _ever_."  She kissed her fingers and touched them to the baby's head.  "Bye," she said, and was gone.

            Spike closed the door behind her, carefully putting the Do Not Disturb sign up, and leaned against the smooth wood, his eyes closed.  So far he'd not even dared to look at the baby yet.  What if it really looked like Riley?  Poncy bugger.  Or what if it was just really ugly?  Deformed or something?

            What if he looked at the baby and just felt nothing?

            The kid was still asleep, wearing a little yellow hat and a blue coat, with tiny little mittens and little trainers.  He was pretty cute, Spike thought objectively.  Such tiny little features.  Delicate eyebrows and a mouth shaped like a perfect cupid's bow.

            Thoughtfully, he went over to a door on the far wall and pressed a button.  A small elevator was revealed, used by the room service staff, and he gently, gingerly, pulled the stroller into it.  It opened on the landing above, and he pushed the stroller into the main bedroom, positioning it to face the bed so if the baby woke up, he'd be able to see Buffy.

            Or would that make no difference?  Was he too young to recognise people?  Spike didn't even know what age they started talking.  He had taken Harmony out once or twice when she was a toddler, but by then she was walking and talking, after a fashion.  He'd steered well clear of all the baby stuff.

            He sat down on the floor in front of the pram and propped his chin on his hands to look at the kid properly.  No, so far he was still just a baby.

            And then he opened his eyes.

            Spike sucked in a breath, because William had the bluest eyes he'd ever seen, and they were fixed right on his daddy.  Blue on blue, they stared it out, and William didn't even seem to need to blink.  Spike was breathless.  This was his son.

            Then William gave an unexpected little laugh and waved his arms, and one of his mittens fell off.  Spike picked it up and replaced it over the tiny, tiny little fingers, tucked it firmly in place, and tentatively stroked the baby's face.

            He laughed again, and Spike broke into a smile.

            "Hey, kid," he said.  "How's my boy?"

            William grinned.

            "Yeah?  Buffy treating you all right?"

            "What did you expect?" came a voice behind him, and Spike turned around so fast he fell over.  Buffy rolled on her side and laughed, watching him pick himself up, and William gurgled delightedly.

            "Yeah, that's right, your daddy's a clown.  How long have you been awake?" he added to Buffy.

            "Long enough.  Quite the bond you've got going there."

            "Yeah, well," Spike looked back at the baby, "he's..."

            "Yes," Buffy smiled softly, "he is."

            "So seriously, Summers, how do you get anything done all day?  Don't you just want to sit there and talk to him?"

            "Well, he's not much of a conversationalist."

            "He has really blue eyes."

            "Most babies do."

            "But his are gonna stay blue," he said.  "I bet all the girl babies fancy the nappy off him."

            Buffy laughed in delight.  "You wanna hold him?" she asked generously.

            Spike wavered.  "I, uh, I don't know how..."

            She smiled.  "Well you could start by taking his hat and gloves and shoes off.  He doesn't like to be too hot and it is warm in here."

            "I can turn down the heating-"

            "No, no it's fine."  Buffy didn't add that as an economy measure she wasn't using the heating system at home much, and she and Dawn tended to congregate around the kitchen table in the evenings, taking heat from the oven as it cooled.  Dawn liked to joke they were like impoverished Victorians.  Buffy wasn't so sure that was funny.

            Spike took off the baby's shoes, mittens and hat, placing them very neatly on the floor, and then unfastened the straps holding him in the seat.

            "Put one hand behind his back and the other-" Buffy began, then stopped when she saw that Spike had done it already and was holding his son with such an expression of pride that Buffy forgot how to breathe for a moment.

            "My mum said when I was a baby I wouldn't go to anyone else," he said softly.  "Only her.  If my dad came near I just screamed at him."

            "Things haven't changed much, then."

            "Guess not.  But Will's not like that."

            Buffy smiled.  "We had this social worker who came by to check up in him and as soon as he saw her he started crying.  I just couldn't figure out what was wrong.  I think she thought I was abusing him or something because he just would not stop screaming.  It was only when she left and he shut up that I realised it was just because he didn't like her."

            Spike laughed.  "Smart kid."

            "He knows who he likes."

            Spike looked at her.  "So he likes me?"

            "I guess he does."

            Right on cue, William started fussing, waving his arms and whimpering.

            "Or maybe not..."

            Buffy pulled herself to sit upright and held out her arms.  "Hand him over," she said with a roll of her eyes, but the baby didn't quiet.  He started pulling at the duvet over her breasts.

            Buffy looked up.  "Did Dawn say whether she'd fed him?"

            Spike looked blank.  "I, er-"

            "Well, he knows when he's hungry."  She pushed down the duvet and offered William her breast.  He took it eagerly, sucking happily.

            Spike stared.  He wasn't sure if what he was seeing was erotic or a turn-off.

            No.  It was beautiful.  The whole thing was - the tiny baby, feeding so happily, so naturally, and Buffy, the look on her face as she held him.  Never mind her dark roots and pasty skin, she was beautiful to him.  She always would be.

            "Does it hurt?" he asked, and she looked up.

            "Not really.  Feels a little odd, but you get used to it."

            "Is it-" Spike began, then stopped, embarrassed.

            "Like when you do it?  A world of no," Buffy laughed.  "I'm not Jocasta."

            Spike raised his eyebrows.  "You read Oedipus?"

            "Had to do something while you were out being lord of the manor."

            He dropped his eyes, scuffed his toe on the edge of the bed.  "Yeah.  Guess so."

            He was trying to think of a way to bring up last night without sounding like an idiot or a pervert, but Buffy interrupted his thoughts.  "Can you hand me that bag?"

            He looked where she was pointing and got a large canvas bag out from under the stroller.  "I asked Dawn to bring you some clothes," he said, not an entire wardrobe."

            "It's all Will's," Buffy said.  "What happened to my clothes?"

            "Laundry," Spike said.  "Don't look at me like that, I couldn't let you sleep in them.  They were wet and dirty from where you fell."

            "Sure," Buffy said, but she didn't seem angry.  Nursing William seemed to turn her into a placid earth mother.  With her free hand, she opened the bag and looked through it.

            "That's all for him?" Spike asked in amazement.

            "Yep."

            "But he's so small..."

            She laughed.  "He has an entire room at home."  She smiled as she found what she was looking for.  "Can I use your bath?"

            "You're not supposed to get your cast wet-"

            "For Will," she said, shifting him to the other breast.  "He'll need a bath."

            "Oh.  Right."  This was totally foreign to Spike.  "Sure.  Want me to run it?"

            She shrugged.  "A couple of inches, body-temperature."

            When he came back the baby had finished feeding, and Buffy was sitting there looking puzzled.

            "You all right there, pet?"

            "Do I have crutches, or do I have to hobble?"

            "You're not supposed to put any weight on it at all."  Spike held out his arms.  "I'll carry you."

            "No, you will not."

            "What, you're going to fly?"

            "I'll hop."

            "You will not hop."

            "I can hop if I want."

            Spike considered the sight of her hopping across the room totally naked, and he smiled.  "Sure, pet.  You hop.  I'll watch."

            Buffy opened her mouth, realised what he was saying, and narrowed her eyes.  Earth mother had left the building.

            "Can I get some clothes?"

            He grinned and handed her a bathrobe.  "That do you?"

            She wrinkled her nose and told him to turn away.

            Spike rolled his eyes.  "I've seen you naked before, pet.  In fact, I saw you naked last night."  How tactful, he cursed himself.

            "Yes.  Well.  Maybe that wasn't such a good idea."

            Her eyes were down, but he was looking straight at her.

            "You want to tell me why?"

            "No."

            "Okay, let me rephrase that: Tell me why."

            Buffy sighed.  "I was angry, and confused, and-"

            "Horny."

            "I - well, okay, yes.  Hadn't had sex in six months.  Couldn't really, even if I'd had the time or the inclination."

            "Me neither," Spike said, and she cocked an eyebrow at him.

            "Couldn't?"

            He made a face.  "Too drunk."

            "How appealing.  Look, Spike, I don't know what you think is going to happen but-"

            "But what, Buffy?  I want to see my son.  And you can't stop me.  And you know that."

            Buffy closed her eyes.  Damn him, he was right.

  



	11. Chapter Ten: The Art of Giving

Chapter Ten: The art of giving

            She eventually got him to take her home by inventing something William needed, something only she knew the location of, and hobbled to the elevator on her crutches while Spike pushed William, once more wrapped up warm in his stroller.  The main elevator took them right down to the underground car park and Buffy swallowed her fear as she moved slowly across the dimly-lit concrete box.  Spike wouldn't do anything to her here, and besides, she could always beat the shit out of him with her crutches.

            She laughed when she saw his car.

            "What," he grumbled, "it's a design classic."

            "It's a hunk of junk."

            "Well, yeah, maybe.  Look, just get in."

            She took her time checking that William was properly fastened in, and pushed her seat all the way back to accommodate her ankle cast.

            "Look, there are times when I'm fully mobile," she said.

            "I remember," Spike gave her a sideways glance, and Buffy was glad it was dark so he couldn't see her blush.

            It took about thirty seconds to get to her house - or so it felt, with Spike's insane driving.

            "You do know there's a baby in the back of this car?"

            "Yes, love."

            "So maybe you might want to slow down?"

            "Why?"

            He had one hand on the wheel and the other arm resting on the window frame.

            "You're hardly driving safely!"

            "Sure I am."

            "No, you're-" Buffy squeezed her eyes shut as he cornered at about forty miles an hour.  "Are you trying to get us all killed?"

            Spike glanced in the rear view mirror.  William was grinning happily.

            "He's enjoying it."

            "Yes, well, maybe he inherited his father's lack of brain cells."

            She stomped up the steps, completely ignoring Spike's offer of help, and it took her about twenty minutes to get to the top.  Several times she thought she'd fall, but Spike was right there behind her, and she felt a weird sense of relief knowing he'd catch her.

            At the top, she hesitated.  Best not to let Spike know she'd invented this mysterious item.

            "I, er, need to be alone for this," she said.  "It's sort of a private thing."

            He backed off.  "Right.  No problem."

            Thank God all men were terrified of the inner workings of the female body.

            "And you know what," Buffy added, "I think I'm gonna take a bath while I'm up here."  More time alone to get her head in order.  "Will can go down for a nap," she pointed to his room.

            Spike went in: it still had most of Joyce's things here, only the bed was missing.  In its place was a wooden cot that he somehow knew Xander had made.  It was the sort of thing he'd do.  Toys were scattered around and there was a big pile of baby clothes sitting on the rocker in the corner.

            "Just lay him down - yeah, that's it," Buffy said.

            "Does he want a blanket?"

            "No.  He always kicks it off.  He'll be warm enough as it is - if he has any complaints he usually lets me know."

            "Do you have a monitor for him?"

            Buffy closed her eyes momentarily.  "No," she said, her face closed.  "I just listen.  I'm going to take a bath," she repeated.

            Spike didn't move.

            "You don't have to stay here," she prompted.

            "Right."  He looked at his watch.  "Maybe I'll watch a bit of TV.  Give me a yell if you need anything."

            Yes, Buffy thought, for you to go.  But she nodded and stumped out of the room, got a towel from the airing cupboard, and shut herself in the bathroom.  She heard Spike go down the stairs and let out a sigh of relief.

            How the hell was she supposed to deal with him just turning up like that?  What gave him the right to determine when they met?  Why was it always him coming to her and not the other way around?

            Did she want to go to him?

            Damn it, Buffy, she cursed herself as she eased off the skirt Dawn had sent her - thank God she'd had the sense not to send trousers which would never have gone over the cast - you just don't know what you want, do you?  You get all prissy about Spike betraying you and taking advantage of you - well, you could have stopped him last night.  You were hardly an unwilling victim, were you?

            She leaned over to check the water temperature.  A long, hot bath was a luxury she hardly ever allowed herself - a quick shower was all she ever had time for, and the water was never hot enough.

            Her position was precarious, sitting on the edge of the bath wrapped in a towel, balancing on one foot while the other stayed immobile in the air, and when Spike banged on the door she lost her balance and wavered perilously close to the water.

            "Shit," Buffy gasped, and shoved at the side of the bath, pushing herself away and ricocheting back onto the floor with a series of painful thuds.

            "Buffy?"  The door burst open - now why hadn't she locked it? - and Spike rushed in, holding a garbage bag of all things.  He saw her on the floor and was at her side in an instant.  "What happened?  Did you fall?  I heard-"

            "I lost my balance," she grumbled, sitting up and pulling her towel about her a little more modestly, wishing it was a little bigger.  And slightly smarter - today of all days she'd picked the oldest towel in the cupboard, faded and frayed-

            "Are you all right, love?"  He was kneeling by her, face full of concern, hands on her arms.  "You're supposed to be taking it easy-"

            "I'm not made of bloody glass," Buffy snapped.  "I've given birth to a baby, I can survive a broken ankle."

            Spike gave her a bit of a smile.

            He was awfully close.

            And very warm.

            Hot, even.

            His lips touched hers and he kissed her with such sweetness Buffy found herself sighing.  Lord, but the man could kiss.  His hands ran up to her shoulders and she slid her arms around his neck, sitting there on the floor wearing only a towel, kissing him.

            Kissing him.

            Bollocks.

            "Spike, no," she pulled gently away.  "It's not - we can't-" she sighed.  "There's too much to figure out," she said.

            "Did we have to figure it out last night?"

            "Maybe we should have?"

            He tilted up her chin.  "Tell me you didn't want it."

            "I told you, I was lonely and horny-"

            "So if I'd been just any guy, you'd have shagged me?"

            Buffy closed her eyes.  "Don't do this."

            "Do what?  Talk?  Kiss?  Try to figure out what the hell is going on in that pretty little head of yours?  'Cos, Summers, I have no sodding idea."

            He stood up and walked out, and Buffy heard the front door slam a few seconds later.

            She put her head in her hands and took a few deep breaths.  She didn't need to cry.  She'd been through far worse than this.  Crying was not needed at such a pathetically pointless time in her life.

            She lifted her head.  So he'd walked out?  So what?

            So, now she needed to figure out how to stand up by herself.

            Rats.

            Spike leaned against his car and lit a cigarette.  It _was_ all her fault, damn her.  How could she be so contradictory?  So hot and cold?  All right, so maybe it had been one of the things he'd liked about her but...

            But...

            God, had it always been so annoying?

            Any other girl and he could have walked away.  But this was his wife, and that was his son.

            His son.

            He'd thought about it so much since Buffy had left.  How old the kid would be now.  A boy or a girl?  His blue eyes or her green.  What kind of school would it go to?  Would it ride Chocolat when it was older?  What would he get it for its first Christmas?

            Well, Christmas had been and gone, marked by a spectacular lack of caring on his part.  He dimly recalled a bottle of scotch from one of his sisters and some bourbon from the other.  Neither had lasted long.  He hadn't heard from his dad or Glory.  Just as well.  Probably he'd have flown at them and ended up in jail again.

            He got in the car and drove around the corner - it wouldn't do for Buffy to see him there like some lovesick puppy.

            Not that he was a lovesick puppy.

            He lit up another cigarette and sighed.  It was just ridiculous.  There was Buffy, hardly able to cope, and here he was with nothing to do and a willingness to help.  But she'd never accept his help.

            He thought for a bit, then put the car in gear and drove to the high school.

            Most of the girls looked at Spike as they left the school to get in their cars or on their buses, to go to parents or friends.  He leaned against the main gate, hair gleaming in the afternoon sun, smoke curling around him in an enticing cloud.

            "Hey, you can't smoke here," someone said, and he turned his head, slowly, to see a small timid man with History Teacher written all over him.

            "Make me stop," Spike said, and the teacher ran away.

            "Can you scare him into letting me off homework, too?" asked a voice on his other side, and he looked down to see Dawn with her eyebrows raised.

            "I'll shoot his rocks off if it'll make you happy, love," he said.

            She looked like she was considering it.  "Yeah, but then we'd just get a sub," she said eventually, and Spike grinned.  "What are you doing here?"

            "Need your help, bit."

            She frowned.  "What kind of help?"

            "I'll explain on the way."

            "The way where?"

            "You'll see."

            Dawn went to tell her friend Janice she wouldn't need a lift home, and followed Spike to his car, her street cred rising visibly as everyone clocked her with this fabulous-looking man.

            He drove her to the gallery, which was closed for the day, and asked, "You got a key?"

            She shook her head.  "Buffy does..."

            "Not gonna ask Buffy."  He got out of the car, and when she didn't follow, looked back and said, "you wanta just watch, or what?"

            "Watch what?" Dawn asked nervously. "Does this place have an alarm?" he asked, looking up at the faded sign above the door.

            "Yes-"

            "Know the code?"

            "I think so."

            "Good."  He got something out of his pocket and had the door open in seconds.  "Go put the code in."

            Terrified, Dawn, did as she was told, and relaxed when the alarm flashed green to tell her it was disabled.

            "Did you just pick that lock?"

            "Yep."  Spike was looking around.  "What's the return on this place?"

            "Uh-"

            "How much money does it make?"

            "Maybe a couple hundred a week."

            "A couple of hundred dollars?  That's eight hundred a month - for two of you plus a baby?  Bills, food, childcare, clothes, everything?"

            Dawn nodded.  Spike whistled.

            "No wonder she hasn't had her roots done."

            She giggled.  "Thank God I stuck with my natural colour."

            "Suits you," Spike said vaguely, and wandered around the gallery.  It was a good space, a high ceiling with a galleried section running around the top.  Mostly it was scuplture and larger pieces downstairs, with fine art upstairs, reached by a spiral staircase.  He stopped in front of a large canvas splattered with shades of bile green and orange.  It was titled Entropy.

            "You know," he said, apparently to himself although Dawn knew he was talking to her, "when I was a kid I went on a school trip to the Tate Modern.  And I was completely gobsmacked."

            "Was that when you got into art?" Dawn asked, remembering Buffy telling her that Spike had quite an eye, and was not averse to stealing national treasures for personal gain.

            "No.  In fact, that's what put me off for a good ten years.  The place was full of crap like this," he pointed to Entropy.  "Meaningless shit.  Will could do this.  It's sodding pathetic.  But thick-as-shit rich people buy it, because they think it's worth something."

            "Isn't it?"

            "Not worth the canvas it's painted on, niblet."

            "I think the artist is one of the regulars."

            "Yeah, well," he gave her a deprecating smile, "much as I love Buffy, she's dumb as a rock when it comes to art.  She's been taken for a ride."

            "You love Buffy?" Dawn asked.

            "Of course I do.  Didn't you know that?"

            She shrugged nervously.  "She always said - I mean, since Will was born - that you only wanted her to get your heir."

            Spike narrowed his eyes.  "And there I was forgetting how much I hate her, too.  Listen, love, I must be insane.  I want to help your sister.  She is still my wife - legally, at least.  And Will is my son.  And yeah, so I want him.  I don't give a fuck about the title - sodding Glory can delude herself about being the first woman in Britain to inherit an earldom if she really wants, but I'll give it up any day."

            Dawn regarded him with quite astonishingly clear blue eyes, rather like Will's.  "What about Glory?  Buffy said-"

            "Yes?  What _did_ Buffy say?"

            "That you and she were..."

            "Whatever it was, it wasn't true.  Glory made it up.  She was trying to drive Buffy away and I guess it worked."

            "Why didn't you go after her?"

            "I did.  I sodding did.  As soon as I heard about your - as soon as I heard," he caught the look on her face and softened his voice, "I came.  And she told me Will was dead.  She said she never wanted to see me again.  Wanted me to go.  And I - look, fuck this.  It's done now.  It's over.  It's time to make things better."

            Dawn's face was wary.  "You hurt my sister or my nephew and I'll personally see to it that you can never have any more children.  Ever."

            Spike held up his hands.  "When did you get so scary?"

            "Right about the time my mom died and my sister brought home a sick baby."

            Spike looked impressed.  "Will you help me?"

            "What do you need?"

            Spike smiled.

            Buffy woke up when Dawn closed the door and called, "Buffy?"

            "Yeah?"

            "It's very quiet in here."

            She heard her sister come up the stairs and into her room.  "I was taking a nap."

            Dawn's eyes gleamed.  "Spike wore you out?"

            Buffy blushed hard.  "Dawn!  I'm catching up on my sleep, thank you very much."

            "How did Spike and Will get on?"

            Buffy frowned lightly.  "I think they liked each other," she said.  "Well, Will liked him.  Spike... I'm not sure.  He was quiet.  Not as cocky."  She looked up at her sister.  "You're late."

            "I, er, I went out shopping with Janice.  Thought you were still with Spike."

            "No.  He brought us home."

            "Will too?"

            "You think I'd leave him?"

            Dawn shrugged and smiled.  "Of course not.  But..."

            "What?" Buffy asked patiently.

            "Well, he is Will's father... And I think you were a little bit harsh to him... He said you told him Will was-"

            "I did."

            "Why?"

            Buffy looked up at her sister's sweet face, so worldly in some ways and so innocent in others, and tried to think of a way to put it.  "He hurt me," she said.  "I wanted to take away the one thing that would hold him to me.  Dawn," she went on, when she saw her sister's face turn, "listen.  You don't know what it was like.  I mean - I know you had to go through everything with Mom on your own and I'm so sorry I wasn't here.  And I started to hate Spike for keeping me away.  And then I saw him with Glory, and then I - God, if you only knew..."

            "Knew what?" Dawn asked, her face stony.

            "I thought I was going to die.  And after that labour I was sure Will was going to be dead.  And when I woke up and he wasn't there, I... I thought he was.  And just then, I felt free, like I could come back here and start over.  No Spike.  Forget about it all.  And it just seemed so much easier to tell Spike that was what happened."

            "Did you really think he wouldn't find out?  From Giles, or Willow or someone?"

            Buffy sighed.  "I don't know.  I was terrified he would, but after I saw his face I knew he wanted nothing to do with me."

            "Well, he does," Dawn stood up.  "And I don't think he's going to give Will up without a fight either."

            She got up and walked out, and Buffy flopped back on her pillows.

            "My ankle's fine by the way," she yelled.

            Dawn didn't reply.

            Great, Buffy thought.  Again with the having two children.  I wouldn't mind so much if she didn't occasionally lull me into thinking she was an adult.  It's not fair: I treat her like an adult, I get snapped at.  I treat her like a kid, I get snapped at.

            She heaved herself out of bad and grabbed her crutches, straightened her pyjamas and hopped through to Will's room.  He was lying there awake, perfectly happy gazing at the mobile Xander had hung above his crib.  He hardly seemed to notice Buffy, but he heard her start to sing and waved his arms at her.

            "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are grey..."

            Dawn came to the door and listened.  She just about remembered Mom singing that to her and Buffy when they were small.

            "You'll never know, dear, how much I love you..."

            Buffy stopped and reached out to touch Will's face.  She didn't say the last line, but Dawn felt it hanging heavy in the air.

            Please don't take my sunshine away.

  


_A.N: So let's say I have no life.  Here's another update… just to keep you tickled.  I didn't get too soppy there, did I?  Keep the reviews coming and I will update more swiftly… see, you give a little, you get a little.  Hugs and puppies all round __J___


	12. Chapter Eleven: Getting Over It

Chapter Eleven:  Getting over it

            "See, we get living expenses," Willow said, "which I guess we could sort of pay you as rent?  Would that be okay?"

            She mentioned a sum that had Buffy wishing she'd gone to university in England.

            "They pay you that just to work in a gallery?"

            "Well, or museum.  I just really thought it'd be cool to come back out here, and Tara remembered you saying about your gallery... I mean, it's not like you have to pay us or anything..."

            If Buffy had been less delirious at the prospect of free, skilled help for the gallery she might have suspected something.  Willow and Tara just suddenly needed to find new work placements?  Giles's department at the museum couldn't sustain them any more?  They were willing to work for free _and_ pay rent?

            _And_ babysit?

            "When can you start?"

            Odd things were happening in Sunnydale - at least, in Buffy's part of it.  She'd gathered all her courage - girl power, motherhood, blondness, every weapon she had - and gone to see Spike at his hotel.

            She'd also not shaved her underarms, just so she wouldn't be tempted to do anything naughty.

            But he hadn't been there.  The receptionist had said he'd checked out that evening and ordered a taxi to the airport.

            He was gone.

            Buffy told herself that it didn't matter, that she'd done very well without him for six months, and she didn't need him, he was just a blip.  His purpose in her life had been to give her Will.  And then he'd gone.  And that was fine.

            It was a pity she was so bad at lying to herself.

            Still, she was suddenly so busy she could fool herself into not caring.  The day after Spike left she got a call from an artist wanting to exhibit his work, and even Buffy could tell he was talented.  She got huge returns on his work, and very suddenly, too.

            Then Willow and Tara came over, and started selling all the other pieces in the gallery.  Even the awful orange-green blobs.  They sourced artists bringing in other pieces, and Tara even suggested that they sell older work too.  Artefacts, maybe?  There was a huge market for it.

            By the time her ankle was healed enough to walk without crutches, and the cast had come off, Buffy had made enough money to make a very important decision.

            "Are you sure?" Dawn asked.

            "Yes.  I have to do this."

            "You don't need to, you know," Willow said.

            "I do.  I've been hiding long enough and hating myself for it."

            "Well, if it makes you feel better..." Tara said.

            "It will," Buffy said.  "I am going to get my hair done."

            It was on her way out of the salon - newly blonde and with a perky new cut - that she noticed a shiny new BMW parked outside her gallery.  Not that it was so unusual these days: word seemed to be spreading and every day seemed to bring some new, rich client with it.

            No, what caught her attention was the licence plate.  HARMONY.

            Buffy braced herself.

            "Your ladyship," she said, creeping up behind the other blonde as she contemplated a forest scene with a few lovely maidens and a unicorn or two.

            Harmony turned in delight.  "Hi, your ladyship!"

            Buffy couldn't help a smile.  "You like that?"

            "Oh, the unicorns are adorable.  Spike told me this place was all crappy tack, but now I've seen this I'm gonna come in every week after I get my nails done!"

            Buffy wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

            "You're living back in Sunnydale?" she asked, thinking, crappy tack?  And I wondered why I left him.

            "No, I'm in LA.  But I still come back here to get my nails done," she waggled them at Buffy, who tried to look impressed at the long pink talons with their studs of cubic zirconia.  "After all, my ex is paying..."

            "Buffy," Willow called from the office, "phone for you."

            "Oh, thank God," Buffy muttered.  "Harmony.  I'm gonna hand you over to Willow for this..."

            She practically ran into the office and shut the door.  "Buffy Summers?"

            "Buff!  You still Bronzing tonight?"

            She smiled.  "Xander, you know I have work to do..."

            "Blow it off!  Anya and I have an anniversary to celebrate and I want you and Will and everyone there."

            He still couldn't quite manage to put Willow and Tara together as a couple, Buffy noticed with a smile.  He'd been terribly excited that his oldest friend was a lesbian, but whenever he came across them together he got awfully shy.  Buffy found it quite endearing.

            "Well, I-"

            "And Dawn did promise to babysit."

            "Don't you want Dawn there too?" Buffy asked archly.

            "The Dawnster's having a party with us after school.  The non alcoholic variety."

            "Ah," Buffy said.  "Well, I-"  she noticed Willow putting a red sticker on the unicorn painting, "I guess so."

            "Try not to burst with enthusiasm."

            She laughed.  "Okay, all right, I'm looking forward to it.  I'll see you at eight?"

            "Ah, an evening with four beautiful girls.  Can we make it earlier?"

            Spike watched Buffy leaving the house, wearing a very short skirt and a high-neck halter that left her back almost completely bare.  His fingers tightened around the steering wheel.  If he had his way she wouldn't leave the house in anything less than a chador.

            Not that he was likely to get his way any time soon.  But things were looking up.  She was actually smiling and laughing as she got in her car with the two girls.  Dawn said Buffy had lightened up a huge amount since Willow and Tara came over.  And Harmony had mentioned a very cute haircut...

            It was working, he thought.  Slowly, it was working.  She was smiling again.  His Buffy was coming back.

            And his Buffy, Spike thought with a smile as her car disappeared round the corner, was damn easy to get back.

            He got out of the car and sauntered up to the Summers house.

            "Were you waiting down the street?" Dawn rolled her eyes as she answered the door.

            "Well, maybe."

            "You're such a stalker!"

            "You wanna tell Buffy I'm here?"

            She wrinkled her nose.  "I think it'd just be much better if you talked to her."

            "She's not ready to talk yet."  Spike noted the new bank of photos on the windowsill.  Buy and Dawn featured quite a lot, but it was Will who was in all of them.  The baby himself was sitting on a playmat in the living room, playing carefully with bright wooden bricks and babbling happily to himself.  As Spike watched, he grabbed hold of the edge of the table and pulled himself to his feet.

            "Hey, kid," Spike said softly, and William grinned at him.

            Buffy watched Xander dancing with Anya and Willow, all three of them laughing at Xander's stupid dancing, and turned to Tara.

            "Is it weird?"

            "Is what weird?"

            "Seeing her with Xander?"

            Tara shrugged.  "Well, I know she's not interested in him any more, if that's what you mean."

            She smiled, and Buffy did too.

            "So what about you?" Tara asked as innocently as she could.  "Are you ready to start dating again?"

            Buffy shrugged.  "I don't know... No.  I don't think so.  I mean, I get about one evening off a fortnight, and really my only topic of conversation is Will anyway.  I mean, how am I going to come off, twenty two with two dependants."

            "Dawn's practically a grown-up."

            "I know.  Sometimes I forget she's a kid.  But you know, I mean, I just feel mean."  Buffy drank some more of her drink.  "Like I'm robbing her of an adolescence.  She's seventeen.  She should be the one here, dancing, having fun..."

            "Havin' a lot to drink," Willow chimed in, checking the progress of Buffy's bottle.  "You wanna dance?"

            Buffy shook her head.  She'd made the mistake of wearing heels tonight and her ankle was starting to ache.  She reckoned she needed another drink, just for medicinal purposes.  Willow offered to go to the bar, planning to get Buffy something a bit lighter than what she'd been drinking.  She'd experienced Buffy drinking before, and it had not ended prettily.

            She was just bringing the drinks back to the table when she walked into someone with bright blue hair.   

            "Oh, I'm sorry - _Oz_?"

            He stopped and stared.  "Will?  God, what're you doing here?"

            She waved her drink.  "Out with some friends.  My friend Xander, from grade school, he - he and his wife have been married two years tomorrow, so..."

            "Very impressive.  What about you?"

            "I, uh," Willow felt her eyes stray back to the table where Tara and Buffy were talking.  "I, yeah, I have someone..."

            "That's great."

            "You?"

            "This singer I've backed up a few times.  We're still just dating, but..."

            Willow smiled.  "I'm happy for you."

            "So, is he here?" Oz asked.

            "Who?  Xander?  Yeah, he's right over-"

            "I mean your boyfriend."

            "Oh," Willow said, and tried to figure out a way to tell him.

            Buffy was surprised when Willow brought a blue-haired boy over to their table, and she watched his impassive face try to deal with Tara's nervous stuttering.  She wondered briefly how she'd feel if she found out one of her exes was gay.  Not Spike, of course... Although with the hair and the leather he did rather lend himself to the camp side of things...

            She swigged her beer, giggling.

            Willow and Tara exchanged glances.

            "Uh, Buffy, how's that beer coming?" Willow asked.

            "Beer good," Buffy said.  "Foamy."

            "How much has she had?" Oz asked.

            "That's about her third."

            "Oh."

            "Not a big drinker.  Maybe we should get you home," Willow said to Buffy.

            "How?" Tara asked.  "She was driving.  And both of us have had a drink..."

            "I'll give you a lift," Oz offered.  "I was on my way out anyway."

            They said goodbye to Xander and Anya, who were happily slow-dancing to power ballads, and went out to Oz's van.  Willow smiled as she saw it: the paint job changed about every three months, but underneath, it was the same old van.

            They settled Buffy in the back, slumped over an amplifier with Willow hanging onto her, and Tara got in the front next to Oz.

            Buffy was the only one who spoke all the way home, and most of what she said was incoherent.

            "You want to come in for a drink?" Willow offered when they got to Buffy's house.  "Coffee, or cocoa, or orange juice?"

            "Don't drink the milk," Buffy slurred, and they all looked at her.

            "I'll bear that in mind," Oz said, locking the van and following them in.

            Willow took Oz through to the kitchen while Tara put their coats and shoes away in the hall cupboard.  Buffy wandered into the living room, drawn by the sound of voices.

            "Bonjour, ma'm'selle," said a deep, darkly familiar voice.

            "Bonjour m'sieur," Dawn giggled.

            "Comment t'appelle tu?"

            "Er... Je m'appelle Dawn?"

            "Excellent, niblet.  Nice accent.  Quelle age as'tu?"

            "Er," Dawn said again, and Buffy, leaning in the doorway, sighed at the scene.  Here was her sister bent over books at the table, practising her French, and Spike sitting on the floor playing with his son and a pile of bricks, while soft music played in the background.  It was blissful.  The sort of scene she'd always wanted.

            Her eyes filled with tears.  She sniffed loudly.

            Spike's head snapped up.  "Buffy?  How long've you been there?"

            "Long enough."

            "I heard Red come back, I didn't realise - look, I can explain..."

            But before he got any further, Willow brought Oz through, and Tara appeared from the other doorway.

            "Nice family scene," Oz said, obviously trying to work out who belonged to who.

            Spike jumped to the worst conclusion and glared at Oz.

            "Uh, whose is the baby?"

            "Mine," Spike said, scooping William close to him.

            "Okay..."

            Dawn giggled.  "Willow, who's this?"

            "This is Oz.  We used to go steady in high school.  Before I went to England and, you know..." She glanced at Tara, and the two of them blushed.

            "You're Red's ex?" Spike said cautiously.

            Oz nodded and held out his hand.  "Daniel Osbourne.  Oz."

            Spike eyed him like he was poisonous.  "You know she bats for the other team now?"

            "Yeah.  Kind of a surprise," Oz said, but his face was so impassive he looked as if the news had been no bigger shock than an increase in taxes.

            "Big surprise," Buffy said, and slid down the wall.  Tara caught her just before she hit the floor.

            "You let her drink?" Spike sighed.

            "We didn't let her anything," Willow said, rushing over.  "She's an adult now, if she wants to drink then she can."

            "Wasn't vodka, was it?  'Cos the last time she got started on that we both had to get new clothes on."

            "I remember," Willow said, as she and her girlfriend hauled Buffy to her feet.  "Oz - I'm sorry, this doesn't look like it's the best time, uh..."

            "Maybe we could come and see your band?" Tara suggested.

            "He's in a band?" Dawn looked up brightly.

            "He has a girlfriend," Willow grinned, and Dawn made a face.

            "I know a single singer, though," Oz offered, sizing Dawn up.

            "No singers," Spike said.  "Nice to meet you, Ozzy.  Red, go and be polite and show the boy out, will you?"  He handed William to Dawn and picked Buffy up instead.  She snuggled against his chest.

            "Can you manage there?" Tara asked doubtfully.

            "Weighs less than she did in England, pet," Spike gave her a smile.  "Come on, love, let's get you to bed."

            "Bed is good," Buffy nuzzled his neck.

            "I think I'll be going," Oz said, backing away.

            "When's your band playing?" Dawn called out, as William started to whimper.

            "Uh, tomorrow, at the Bronze."

            "Not Dingoes Ate My Baby?  Oh my God!  I knew I knew you from somewhere!  I frickin love that band!" Dawn squealed, and William started making more noise.  "Okay, all right, time for a clean diaper.  Come on."

            She followed Spike and Buffy up the stairs and took William into his own room.

            "Want my baby," Buffy cried, reaching out for him.

            "Later, love," Spike said, pushing her door shut with his foot and laying her on the bed.  She blinked up at him with unfocused eyes.

            "You shouldn't be here," she said vaguely.

            "Always seems to be me putting you to bed," Spike said.  "Maybe I should be here."

            "I can put myself to bed," Buffy said, sitting up so fast she got dizzy and nearly fell off the bed.  Spike caught her in time.

            "I know you can, pet.  Just humour me and let me look after you though, alright?"

            "I don't need looking after..."

            "Wouldn't it be nice, though?"

            "No one ever wants to look after me," Buffy pouted.

            "I do."

            "I have to do all the caring, with Dawn and the baby..."

            Dawn, passing, heard her name and peeked in.  She rolled her eyes at Spike and mouthed, "He's asleep," pointing to Will's room.  Spike nodded, and Dawn pulled the door closed again.

            "I have a baby," Buffy said suddenly, as if it was news to her.

            "Yes, love.  A great baby.  Very intelligent."

            "He called me Mommy yesterday," Buffy's eyes filled with tears.

            Spike thought it was more likely that Buffy had heard 'Mommy' from the indiscriminate sounds Will liked to make, but he wasn't going to burst her bubble.

            "He loves you, pet."

            "I love him," Buffy sighed.  "He's so perfect.  He's the most perfect thing I ever did."

            "Yep."  He brushed some of her hair from her face.

            "Spike?" She grabbed his wrist.

            "Yes, love?"

            "I'm really drunk."

            "Yes, love."

            "Make the room stop spinning..."

            "Close your eyes."

            "Still spinning."

            "Close them.  That's it.  I'm gonna take your shoes off, love, try not to kick me..."

            She giggled.  "Tickles."

            "Does it hurt?" He pressed gently on her ankle.

            "Noooo."

            "Good."  Shoes off, he tucked her feet under the duvet and pulled it up over her.  "You want anything?  Glass of water?"

            But Buffy was already asleep.

            Spike sat there and watched her for a bit.  Two months ago he'd watched her sleep in his arms in the hotel, both before they'd made love and after, and he ached to get into bed with her now and hold her.  Sure, he'd missed the sex in all the months they'd been apart, but almost as much, he'd missed just sleeping with her.  Holding her.  Being with her.

            He kissed her forehead, tucked the duvet around her, and left the room to check on William, who was sleeping angelically, and then go downstairs.

            "She's gonna be so pissed in the morning," Dawn said as he went into the living room.

            "She's pretty bloody pissed now," Spike replied.  "How much did she have?" he asked Willow.

            "Two beers, that I know of."

            "Bloody hell.  That girl is such a lightweight."  He ran his hands over his face.  "Okay.  I should probably get going before she wakes up and remembers I was here," he said heavily.

            "I don't see why she'd be so mad," Tara said hesitantly.

            "Because she wants me out of her life, not deeper in it," Spike said.  He took out his wallet and handed Tara and Willow some money.  "She's not figured it out yet?"

            "Nope.  This," Willow waved the money, "got the cable reconnected."

            "I'm so glad to hear it.  How's the gallery?  You get that shipment of Rembrandt sketches?"

            Tara nodded.  "I'm not sure how we're going to get those past her.  Buffy does know a few things about art."

            "Well, tell her you got them by mistake.  Job lot at an auction or something."  He yawned.  "You going to see blue-boy's band tomorrow, niblet?"

            She nodded.  "If Buffy lets me."

            He frowned thoughtfully.  "They any good, Red?"

            "They used to be," Willow said cheerfully.  "Last I saw them.  I think Oz said they have the same line-up."

            "Take Buffy with you," Spike told Dawn.

            "But-"

            "Get the whelp to babysit.  I know how he likes to play at being responsible."

            "More responsible than you," Dawn said.

            Spike gave her a dark look, but to her credit she didn't flinch.

            "Just get her there tomorrow," he said, and walked out.

            Upstairs, the baby started to cry.

            "I'm not going," Buffy said.

            "But, but you have to!"

            "Why do I have to?"

            "Because I need a chaperone."

            Buffy gave her sister a mocking look.  "_You_ need a chaperone."  She felt Dawn's forehead.  "Are you ill?  Did aliens come in your room last night and do experiments on you, did a poltergeist possess you?"

            "Buffy.  Come on.  It'll be fun."

            "Like yesterday was fun?"

            "Well, you seemed happy," Dawn faltered.

            "I seemed drunk.  Remember drunk Buffy, how much fun she is?"

            Dawn grinned.  "Actually, you were kinda-"

            "And what the hell will Oz think?  He brought me home and I nearly threw up on his equipment!"

            "I'm sure he's seen worse.  He is in a band."

            "Well, I can't face him again."  Buffy got a paper knife and slit open the tape on top of a cardboard box.  "I have never been so embarassed..."

            "I'm sure you have," Dawn muttered.  "Anyway.  I'm gonna go-"

            "Fine.  You deserve some fun."

            Dawn felt a little guilty.  "Oz said his singer's really cute."

            "Did he?  Dawn, no dating a singer."

            "Why not?"

            "Because," Buffy said, and when that didn't wash, she added, "Because I say so."

            "You cannot tell me who not to date."

            "No?  Well, Mom used to tell me who not to date, and since I'm the parent here-"

            "This is so not fair!  Mom never used to tell you who not to date.  And besides, when do I get to tell someone who they can and can't date?"

            Buffy shrugged.  "You can tell Will."

            "He's eight months old."

            "I saw that little Italian girl giving him such an eyeful the other day.  Little strumpet," Buffy grinned.  "You can tell her to steer clear."

            "She's can't even stand up yet."

            "See?  Underdeveloped.  Clearly not good enough for my boy."

            Dawn frowned.  "You're in a good mood, to say you're hungover and mortally embarrassed."

            Buffy beamed.  "Look in that box."

            Dawn frowned, and lifted the lid on a packing case.  "It's just some sketches..."

            "Some sketches signed by Rembrandt.  Willow found them in an auction lot.  Dawn, if I can get those verified they'll be worth a _fortune_."

            "Neat," Dawn tried to hide her smug look.  "How much did you get them for?"

            "A hundred dollars.  They came with some watercolours Tara thought might be interesting."

            "Are they?"

            "Well, they're not bad.  Not Rembrandt, though."  Buffy paused.  "Did... Did Spike stay long last night?"

            Dawn shrugged.  "He left not long after you got back."  She winced a little.  "You're not mad, are you?"

            "Mad?"

            "At me.  For letting him in."

            Buffy laughed.  "It's not like I think he's going to attack you, Dawn.  You're far too classy for his tastes.  He likes really obvious girls."

            "No, he likes you," Dawn said.

            Buffy ignored that.

            "I thought you didn't want anything to do with him," Dawn pressed.

            Buffy sighed.  "Well, I don't, but... I can't stop him seeing Will.  Look," she put down the invoices she was going through, "he's a powerful man.  And if I cut off all access to his son - and heir - then he could take me to court or something.  I lied to him and the courts wouldn't like that.  And he has a lot more money than I do.  I can't afford that.  What if he takes Will away from me?"

            Dawn saw the tears behind her sister's eyes and touched her hand.  "He won't.  He wouldn't do that."

            Buffy shrugged.  "I know he seems nice and normal but-"

            "Buffy, he has peroxide hair and a burn scar on his face."

            "Well, okay, not normal, but sane or... No, he's not really that either.  What I mean is, if I don't allow him access to Will, maybe he could take action against me."

            "So... You're going to let him carry on seeing Will?"

            Buffy shrugged.  "I don't want to, but yes.  Just so long as I'm not around."  She picked up the invoices again.

            "Oh," Dawn said, so casually Buffy looked up at her.

            "_What_?"

            "It's just he said he might come over tonight.  I said I might be going out, so he said he might come over and see you and Will..."

            Dawn watched her sister's face as she worked it out.  Spike and me alone in the house with a baby to chaperone us.  Dawn alone at the Bronze with no one to chaperone her.

            "What time is the band playing?" she asked, and Dawn smiled.

            Dawn immediately fell in lust with the Dingoes' singer, Devon, which made Buffy quarantine her at their table and not allow her to go and dance provocatively at the front of the floor, right by the stage.  She looked over her sister and wondered when she'd turned into such a hottie.  Didn't Dawn used to look like a little girl?

            Now she had her hair curled, expert eyeliner on and a tiny little top that was less than Buffy wore in the bath.  She looked sensational, but rather too mature for Buffy's liking.

            "Wanna drink?" Willow offered, and Dawn, knowing how far to push it, said, "Coke, please."

            "Buffy?"

            "Water."

            They exchanged glances.

            "Not even a Coke?  Go on, let your hair down.  Be wicked."

            "I don't need any more toxins, thank you very much.  And besides, I'm still breastfeeding.  I need to flush out all that beer..." Buffy realised that a rather cute guy who'd been approaching their table suddenly veered away when he heard her say 'breastfeeding'.

            She dropped her head on the table.  "Thank you very much Spike for ruining my entire life!"

            "Didn't do it on purpose, pet," came a familiar voice from behind her and Buffy nearly fell off her stool.

            "Spike!"

            "Yep."  His eyes travelled over her and his eyebrows flickered in approval.  "Looking good."

            Buffy tugged up her neckline.  With little time to shower, change and hand Will over to Xander and Anya, Buffy'd left her sister to pick out some clothes for her.  Dawn had gone with leather pants and a rather tiny little top, accessorised with big heels ("Because that ankle's gonna need a workout") and a little crucifix choker.  Buffy, too rushed to argue, had got dressed, imagining she'd look a fright.  But she'd lost so much weight after Will had been born, everywhere but her breasts which were still huge, and she looked modelish in the outfit.

            She'd fancied herself in it far too much to take it off.

            Evidently Spike fancied her quite a bit too.  "Can I buy you a drink?"

            "A world of no."

            He grinned.  "Not even a soft one?"

            "I have a drink," Buffy indicated her water.  "What are you doing here?"

            "Thought I'd come and see the band."  Spike wrinkled his nose.  "They're not bad," he said grudgingly.

            "From someone who thinks the Sex Pistols are the greatest band ever, I'd take that as an insult."

            "No, love, the Beatles are the greatest band ever.  The Pistols are the greatest punk band."

            "Whatever," Buffy said, thinking, I can't believe I'm arguing about the Sex Pistols with him.  Of all the things to be arguing about, we get that.  "I thought you-"

            Spike raised his eyebrows.

            "I thought you didn't like Oz," she finished, having been about to say she'd thought he was going to try and see her and Will tonight.

            "He's a skinny little minger, but he's not bad on a guitar," Spike said.  "You wanna dance?"

            "I shouldn't leave-" Buffy looked around to her sister, who was no longer there.  "Dawn..." She glanced about over the crowd.  "Where is she?"

            "In the middle of a crowd of adoring admirers," Spike pointed to the dancefloor, where men were ogling Dawn openly.  Buffy made to rush out there and drag her back, but Spike grabbed her arm.

            "She's seventeen," he said.  "She can look after herself.  She's a grown-up."

            "But she's-"

            "What?  Lonely?  Unpopular?  You know everyone at the school thinks she's just your babysitter?  Whenever anyone asks her to do something after school, she has to tell them she's picking Will up, or taking Will to the doctor's, or babysitting Will.  Will is her boyfriend.  She hasn't had a date since before he was born.  She hasn't even been _asked_ on a date."

            Buffy said nothing, watching her beautiful sister dance.

            "Let her have some fun," Spike said, releasing her.  "She's grown up enough the last few months."

            Buffy was silent a while.  "She must hate me."

            "She doesn't hate you.  She admires you.  She just wishes she had more of a life of her own."

            "Since when did you know so much about my sister?"

            He shrugged.  "We've had a few chats."

            The penny dropped in Buffy's head.  "Last night wasn't the first time you went over without my knowing, was it?"

            Spike shrugged, not looking in the least contrite.  "Guilty as charged."

            "How many times?"

            "Maybe half a dozen."

            "How long have you been back in Sunnydale?"

            "Nearly a month."

            He was watching her carefully.  Trying to see if it bothered her.

            "Well, maybe we should work out a system or something," Buffy said tightly.  "So you can see him more often."

            Spike stared.

            "Unless you don't want to-"

            "No, no I want to.  Buffy, I thought you wanted me to stay away?" Spike said incredulously.

            "Well, that doesn't mean I can make you.  He is your son.  I guess you have a right to see him."

            "I guess I do."  Spike ran his hand through his hair suspiciously.  "Is this a trap?  Like if I see him now you're going to take him away in a month?"

            She shrugged.  "Where would we go?"

            Spike laughed, shaking his head in amazement.  "Buffy, you're fantastic," he said, suddenly kissing her on the mouth.  "This calls for a celebration."

            She shrank away, and Spike rolled his eyes.  "Dance with me."

            "I don't - er, my ankle," Buffy said suddenly, shifting her weight and trying to look sorrowful.  "I can't dance on it yet."

            "But you can wear ankle-cracking shoes?" Spike raised an eyebrow.  "Come on, pet.  I'm not asking you to flamenco.  Just dance the next song."

            Buffy hesitated.  "We shouldn't do this."

            "No?  Why not?"

            "Because - look, it's just-"

            Spike's face was still, but his eyes were gleaming with amusement.

            Buffy stamped her foot.  "I am not going to dance with you!"

_A.N.  So, any guesses what happens next?  Am I that transparent?_


	13. Chapter Twelve: Just Because You Feel Go...

Chapter Twelve: Just because you feel good

            "This is such a bad idea," Buffy moaned as Spike held her against him.

            "Why?"

            "You know why."

            "What, because you might actually enjoy it?  Oh no!" Spike gave her a look of mock horror.  "Call the police!  Buffy Summers is enjoying herself!"

            She thumped his chest.  "Can it."

            "Come on, Summers.  I'm not that objectionable, am I?"

            "Yes.  You're evil and I hate you," Buffy said, but she couldn't make it sound very sincere.

            The band had slowed down a little and was playing a low-key, bluesy track.  It was hard to keep dancing without pressing up very close to Spike.  Devon sang out into the audience, his eyes on Dawn, but Buffy didn't notice.

            _'I don't wanna fall again_

_            For a girl who doesn't feel the same for me...'_

            Spike's body was hot and close, the muscles in his chest and stomach hard, his body strong and solid.  So familiar.  It was so damn tempting to just nestle in his arms, the way she had the last time they'd danced, at the wedding...__

_            'But it's happening, my friend:_

_            When you walk into a room it hurts to breathe..._'

            Buffy sighed and let her head fall on Spike's shoulder.

            He smiled slowly.  His lifted her arm from around his neck and looked at her ring finger.  "But you're not Summers any more, are you, pet?"

            She put her hand back.  "If anyone asks, I am."

            _'I'd give my world to you,_

_            I'd give it all to you, if that's what you said you wanted...'_

            "So why do you still wear the ring?  Both rings?"

            She shrugged, averting her eyes.  "Doesn't hurt to look unavailable."

_            'My heart is black and blue_

_            And I ain't got a clue 'bout how to love you only as a friend...'_

            "Men beating at your door?"

            She tossed her head.  "Constantly."

            Spike quirked his eyebrows at that.

"What, you don't believe me?"

            He shook his head, smirking.

            '_Your kisses should be mine_

_            I don't want anyone else but you...'_

            "You're a bastard, you know that?" Buffy said.

            "Tell me something I don't know."

            _'And I want you to see me_

_            Open your eyes, there's nobody but you...'_

            Spike's fingers tightened on her waist.  Buffy frowned and tried to pull away.  "Okay, you've had your-"

            He reeled her back.  "No, I haven't."

            "Yes, you-"

            Spike kissed her.

            '_And I just hope you feel it too_

_            Because your beauty stops this stone cold heart from beating...'_

            "Wha'?" Buffy said, dazed.

            Spike's hands were in her hair, pulling the clasp away, running his fingers through the long, newly golden strands.  He kissed her again, and this time Buffy kissed him back.

_            'No, there's nothing I can do_

_            No one said that love was gonna be easy..._'

            She was breathless, her heart, her whole body thrumming in rhythm with his.  A tiny tiny little voice at the back of her mind told her she absolutely shouldn't be doing this, but Devon's voice drowned it out.__

_            'Your kisses will be mine_

_            I don't want anyone else but you_

_            And I want you to see me_

_            Open your eyes, there's nobody but you_

_            Nobody but you.'_

            The song ended, but neither of them noticed.  The band piled offstage, Devon rushed over to sweet-talk Dawn, Willow and Tara giggled in a corner together, no one noticed Buffy and Spike snogging madly in the middle of the dance floor.

            "We should," Buffy tried desperately to take her mouth away from his, "we shouldn't-"

            "Mmm," Spike replied.  "Definitely."

            "But - this isn't..."

            "Sure."

            "We should..."

            "We should."

            "Not here..."

            Finally he pulled away from her long enough to take in a proper breath.  "Yeah.  Totally agree.  Let's go."

            He had his arm around her waist as he pulled her off the floor, through the club, and out into the cool night air.  He pressed her up against the wall outside the club and kissed her again, more intensely than before, and Buffy was glad the wall was there because she knew she'd have fallen over otherwise.

            "Car," she gasped, and Spike nodded, whisking her over to the DeSoto and leaning over to kiss her again even before she'd finished fastening her seatbelt.  He started the engine and gunned out of the car park in seconds, swooshing through Sunnydale at far too high a speed for Buffy's liking.

            Suddenly, without Spike touching her any more, she realised what she was doing.

            "Stop!" she cried, and Spike glanced over in alarm.

            "What?  What's up?"

            "Stop, I need to get out."

            Thinking she was going to be sick or something - had there been vodka in that water? - Spike slung the car onto the hard shoulder and Buffy stumbled out, grabbing her bag, and started running.

            "Shit," he yanked the handbrake on and got out and ran after her.  "Buffy.  Buffy!"  He grabbed her arm and swung her round.  "Where are you going?"

            "I - this is-"

            "What?"

            "We can't," she said, looking up at him with frightened eyes.

            "Why not?"

            Buffy opened her mouth.  Right now she couldn't remember.

            "We just can't," she said lamely.

            "Give me one reason why."

            "I-" she honestly felt drunk again, dizzy and confused.  She'd been Spiked, hah.

            Spike took advantage of her open mouth and kissed her again, and passing motorists honked at them.  Buffy felt herself weakening.  Spike's body was so strong and so hot and so hard... really hard, in fact...

            "I can't leave Dawn," she whispered weakly, the only excuse she could think of.

            "Dawn's fine.  The girls'll take her home."

            "I should call..."

            Spike dug his phone out of his pocket - which suddenly seemed very tight - and hit a few keys.  He listened, then he pressed the phone to Buffy's face.

            "...of Dawn Summers, I can't take your call, but leave a message and I'll get back to you.  _Beeep_!"

            Buffy hesitated.  "Dawnie, it's me.  I, er, I'm-" Spike started licking her other ear and her voice went up a few octaves, "I'm with Spike, I, uh, I'll be home in the morning," she shoved the phone away and grabbed him and kissed him hard.  It was impossible.  She just couldn't stop.

            Somehow, they managed to get back in the car, and this time when he pulled back into traffic, Spike kept one hand on Buffy's thigh.  She could feel the heat of his hand through the leather of her jeans.  God, she was so hot in them.  Really, she should take them off.

            Spike seemed to be having the same idea, because his hand was hovering near her fly, and quite suddenly, the top button was undone.

            And then the zip, too.

            And then Buffy was inching them down.

            "Oh Christ," Spike groaned when he realised she was taking them off.  "Are you trying to make me crash?"

            "No," Buffy reached over to his fly, "this is trying to make you-"

            He shoved her hand away, the car swerving.  "Stop that!"

            Buffy giggled, wriggling in her seat, incredibly glad that her random sweep of her underwear drawer had yielded a decent pair of knickers for once.  Spike's hand came back, now to her bare thigh, and his fingers ran up the soft skin on the inside of her leg.

            She swallowed.

            Surely it couldn't be far now?  His fingers were playing patterns on her leg.  Buffy tried to remember how to breathe.  This was insane.

            "Maybe you'd," she panted, "better stop..."

            "Can't handle it?"

            "Sure I can-" Buffy's voice suddenly rose to a squeak as his finger stroked the gusset of her knickers.  "Dear God, don't do that!"

            Smirking, Spike moved his fingers to the relative safety of her thigh again, and Buffy clung to the car door, urgently sucking in lungfuls of nicotine scented oxygen.

            When Spike finally swung the car into a bay in the underground car park, Buffy leapt on him, her fingers scrabbling to unfasten his jeans, her mouth locked to his.  She would have fucked him right there and then, but the flash of a torchbeam through the window reminded them both that there were people patrolling the car park.

            "Upstairs," Spike said.  "Lift-" he pointed.

            "Pants," Buffy reached for them, but Spike grinned and grabbed his duster from the back seat.

            "Put this on," he said, and licked her neck.

            He opened the door and Buffy tumbled out, wrapping the duster about herself.  It felt incredibly erotic to know that all she was wearing underneath was a tiny bra top and her underwear.  Evidently Spike thought so too, judging by the rather huge bulge in his jeans.  He pulled his shirt over it and hustled her towards the lift, but someone else joined them, a man in a suit who looked disgusted at their close contact.  But Buffy couldn't stop touching Spike, and the feeling seemed to be mutual.

            Their companion got off at the first floor lobby, and Buffy nearly screamed when half a dozen people got on, all wanting to go to different floors.  Spike pulled her back against his chest, his erection pulsing against her through the leather of his coat.

            When the last person finally exited, he spun her round and pinned her against the wall of the lift.

            "Thought they'd never get off!" Buffy panted.

            "Thought we never would," Spike bit her lip, and she moaned loudly.  Every cell in her body was screaming with lust.  She had to have him, or she'd burst into flames.  The lift pinged at Spike's floor - the penthouse again - and they stumbled out into the small lobby.

            "Key," Buffy gasped.

            "Let's do it here."

            "No!" She pushed his hands out from under the duster.  "Inside.  Quick."

            She found the key in one of his pockets and had a devil of a time trying to get it in the lock.  Buffy had never been able to work those stupid key cards anyway, and with Spike pressing very hard up against her back, licking her ear and telling her all the filthy things he was going to do to her, she started to think she'd never get it done.  Maybe Spike's idea of doing it out in the hallway would be-

            "Ha!" The door finally swung open, Spike yanked her inside, kicked the door shut and shoved her up against it.  He was inside her in seconds and both of them let out a yell of relief.

            "Oh God, Buffy," he started moving inside her, and Buffy put her hands on his shoulders and lifted her legs up around his waist.  "Christ..."

            "God, that feels good," she squeezed him, and he moaned.  "Come on, harder.  Fuck me harder, Spike, deeper - oh, God!"

            Spike came first, unable to hold on for more than a few minutes, and they slid down to the floor together.  Buffy pushed him onto his back, straddling him, and slipped her own fingers down to her clitoris, desperate to climax.

            Incredibly turned on by this flushed, tousled goddess pleasuring herself on top of him, Spike felt himself get hard again, grabbing her hips and rocking her on him, pulling her down to him, shoving her clothes out of the way and sucking hard on one of her nipples.

            Buffy's sharp gasps turned to shrieks, then to screams, and then she came with a yell, collapsing on him, trembling and shaky, hardly able to breathe.

            For a few seconds they lay together, clinging and clutching, breathing hard, and then Spike rolled Buffy onto her back and kissed her, long and deep.  She moaned contentedly, and when he started moving inside her again, she rocked her hips in time.

            "Again?"

            "And again," Spike thrust into her, "and again... and again..."

            "Don't stop," Buffy whispered.

            "Never."

            And he didn't.  They played with that position for a while, never losing intimate contact, Buffy pushing Spike over on his back again, rolling her hips and watching his face sharpen with pleasure, leaning back and crying out as the friction inside of her built almost unbearably.  Spike slipped his fingers down to the place they were joined, and watched her come again.  Then he pushed her down on her back, still inside her, and lifted her legs up over his shoulders.  Buffy moaned helplessly.

            Hell of a view, Spike thought, and it wasn't long before he came again, triggering a mini orgasm in Buffy.

            "We should probably," he sat up, "try and aim for the bed?  I'm getting carpet burns here."

            Buffy sat up too.  "You?  You're still fully dressed."

            "You still have your underwear on."  He fiddled with her exposed nipple.  "Well, sort of.  Have I told you lately how much I love these?" he stroked her enlarged breasts.

            "No, but you can show me," Buffy swung herself off him and wriggled her underwear into a more comfortable position.  She was halfway up the stairs when she realised Spike wasn't following.  He was lying back on the floor, looking smug, one hand behind his head.  His shirt half open, showing his delectable abdomen.

            "Uh, you sort of have to come with me for this bit."

            "Do me a favour and just walk to the top of those stairs," Spike said.

            Buffy frowned.

            "You wiggle your arse when you go up stairs," he explained, grinning.  "And right now there's not a lot covering it."

            Buffy rolled her eyes, but she did it anyway, and when she got to the top, turned around just in time to see Spike rushing after her.  She shrieked and ran for the outside balcony, and he caught her around the waist and pulled her back against him.

            "Running away?" he growled in her ear.

            "Gonna stop me?"

            "Oh yeah," he took her earlobe  between his teeth and bit on it, "definitely."

            Buffy tried to turn in his arms but he stopped her, pressed her forward onto the balcony.  Against the railing.

            "Woah," Buffy looked down.  "This is-" she stopped as she felt something behind her, "-kinky..."

            "Not the first time we've done it somewhere public, love," Spike's teeth grazed her neck and she closed her eyes.

            "The first time," she gasped sharply as he entered her, "there've been people around."

             "We're on the top floor.  No one's gonna look up."

            "They could hear..."

            She felt him laugh softly, all the way through her.  "I sincerely hope they do."

            When she knew she was in love with him, Buffy had liked to have sex face to face the most.  She loved to look at Spike's beautiful face, his heavenly body, see his expression when he came.  But now... Now she'd spent eight months telling herself he was just a blip and she'd never loved him anyway, now she was free to admit...

            She loved it from behind.

            Buffy almost found herself wishing that someone would hear them.  Look up and see them.  Wish to be one of them.  Envious.  Wanting it.

            "They want to be me," Spike's voice was almost inaudible behind her.  "Want to be fucking you."

            She didn't know what was more disturbing: that he'd said it, or that she'd been thinking it.

            "Who?"

            "The people down there.  They want to be inside you.  Feel you all tight... squeezing... hard and - thrusting-" his narrative faltered and his hand clutched at her hip.  "Fucking you," he whispered, pinching on her clitoris, and Buffy cried out.  "That's it.  Louder.  Come on.  Tighter."

            "Spike..."

            "Can you feel it?"

            "Don't stop."

            "Hard, slick..."

            "You're so hard," Buffy gasped.

            "Tight..."

            "Harder-"

            "Such a tight, wet little-"

            "Fuck me!"

            Spike obliged, driving into her so hard it almost hurt.  Buffy cried out loudly, and she knew everyone else out on their balconies, enjoying the mild Californian darkness, could hear her.  Mindlessly, she moaned and screamed - harder, fuck me, deeper, so good, Spike-! - and when she came, she was sure it could be heard in LA.

            Spike came too, and slipped out of her, holding her around the waist so she wouldn't fold in two and fall over the balcony.

            Buffy shivered.

            "Cold, pet?"  He kissed the back of her neck.

            Not cold, Buffy realised.  Uneasy.  What the hell was she doing?

            But before she could really think about it, Spike had led her back inside and made her mindless again.  And again.  And again.

            Buffy woke in the early hours of the morning, breasts full and heavy.  William was on solids now, but he still breastfed occasionally, and her body knew this.

            God, William.

            She looked down at the man sleeping beside her, unutterably beautiful in the moonlight, lying there with his arm slung possessively over her.  She shouldn't have done this.  Shouldn't have done it at all.

            As quietly as she could, Buffy slipped out of bed and gathered her clothes.  But of course her leather pants were still in the DeSoto, and there was no way she was hunting for the keys to go and find them... Besides which, she still had to get down there with nothing to wear...

            The memory of the trip in the lift, wearing just his duster, some heels and little more than her underwear, made Buffy feel ill.  She'd acted like a hooker.

            Pressing her hands to her face, she made herself breathe.  She'd go, and then next time she saw Spike, she'd just explain that sure, he could see Will, but it was best if they didn't see each other.

            It was bloody annoying, though, that she had to borrow his jeans to go home in.

            The taxi dropped her off at the end of the street and Buffy ran the rest of the way.  She didn't want to wake Dawn.  But when she got in and made to creep past her sister's bedroom, she found it empty.  Willow and Tara's was, too.

            Panicking, she ran around calling her sister's name.  Checking the answerphone.  Looking for a note.  There was nothing.  Buffy's heartbeat raced.  God, she'd gone missing before, Drusilla had kidnapped her and tortured her, and it was all because Buffy was too busy fucking Spike to notice-

            She hauled out her cell phone and was just about to look up his number and beg him for help when she realised there was a message flashing on it.  It took two tries for her terrified fingers to reach voicemail, but when she did, Dawn's voice filled her ear.

            "Buffy?  Listen, I looked for you in the Bronze but I can't find you... Uh, I'm going to this club Devon knows.  Don't worry, I'll behave - Willow and Tara are here too.  We might be late back.  I guess if I'm not back in the morning I'll be at, uh, Oz's..."

            Buffy closed her eyes.  Out on the razz with bandmembers who were at least five years older than her - and in a _band_!  They could be drinking, and smoking, and God, there could be drugs...

            Buffy started calling her sister's number and leaving terrified voicemails.

            Dawn woke to hear William crying, and buried her head in the pillow.  She could have stayed with Devon.  She could have taken Oz up on his offer of a lift home.  But no.  Instead, she'd slapped Devon's face so hard she'd no doubt there'd be a bruise, and stormed out.  So maybe she'd thought about going all the way with him.  And then she'd remembered that she was seventeen and barely knew him and then he'd said - well, she wanted to forget the disgusting things he'd said.

            Xander's apartment wasn't far away, so she'd gone there, leaving a message on Willow's mobile that she wasn't going home with them.

            Willow and Tara woke on the sofa in the apartment Oz and Devon shared.  Devon had lit up a spliff, and while neither of the girls were interested - tried it at college, not too impressed - his second hand smoke had definitely made them woozy.

            "Where's Dawn?" Tara asked, and Willow blinked sleepily.

            "She was with Devon..."

            They looked at each other.  "Oh, no, do you think-?"

            "Do you want to go and check?"

            "Do you?"

            Eventually, they decided to go together, and cautiously pushed open one of the bedroom doors.  Oz lay asleep with his rather abrasive girlfriend, Verucca.  No Dawn.

            "At least it's not a threesome," Willow whispered, making Tara giggle.

            "Door number two?"

            Willow nodded, and they opened it.

            Devon, snoring loudly.  There was a big bruise on his face, but no Dawn.

            "This is..." Willow looked confused.  "Is this good?"

            "Well, she's not with Devon..."

            "But she's not here..."

            "Huh."

            Dawn called just as they were starting to get worried, and the sound woke up Devon, who moaned loudly that Dawn was a menace, and what the hell had she done to his beautiful face?

            Trying not to laugh, Willow and Tara had made a tactful exit and driven to Xander's to pick Dawn up.

            "We wondered where you'd gone..."

            "Oh," Dawn tried to look casual, "I just missed Will is all... How come you guys fell asleep?"

            "Oh," Willow couldn't look at her girlfriend, "we were just really tired... Shall we go home now?  Buffy's probably worried sick."

            They walked in to find Buffy calmly eating breakfast in the kitchen.

            "Nice of you to all call and tell me where you were," she said.

            "You don't look too distraught," Dawn said, getting into stroppy teenager mode.

            "No, well, I heard your garbled message at about four this morning, and called Xander, and he filled me in."

            "Where did you go last night?" Willow asked curiously, and Buffy's eyes were suddenly fixed on her cereal bowl.

            "Uh, I just, I needed some air, so I left for a walk.  And then I came home.  Straight home.  Didn't any of you get my message?" she asked cautiously, trying to remember who she'd called before deep hot lust had taken over.

            Willow and Tara shook their heads, wondering if the dope smoke had messed up their phones.

            "I, uh, ran out of battery," Dawn admitted.

            "Well, I just came straight back here," Buffy said brightly.  "Didn't go anywhere else.  So did you guys have a good night?"

            They all suddenly found other places to look.

            "Not bad."

            "Okay."

            "Kinda dull, actually."

            And all of them were so relieved that no one else thought they were lying, that they forgot to notice how guilty they all sounded.

                _A.N.__  The song above is 'Your Kisses' by Jokers Wild (jokerswildmusic.com).  I hope they don't mind me borrowing it... Well, they better not, since I kinda live with one of them!_


	14. Chapter Thirteen: Secrets and Lies

Chapter Thirteen: Secrets and Lies

            I must not think about Spike, Buffy told herself as she drove to work and remembered making out in his car.  I must not think about Spike, as she parked up and swung her legs out, this time covered by a businesslike skirt, not a leather duster.  I must not think about-

            You know, the railing on the gallery balcony is just like the one on the hotel balcony...

            The sheets on the bed in that painting are like his...

            That man is wearing a leather jacket...

            Oh fuck.  I have to stop this.

            It was a Saturday, and both Willow and Tara were helping out, charming difficult customers into buying expensive pieces.  Buffy looked over yesterday's sales figures.  She couldn't believe how well the gallery was doing.  All this fantastic stuff suddenly coming her way, and people practically queuing up to buy.  She had several customers on waiting lists, waiting to haggle over the next piece by their new favourite artist.

            It was midafternoon when someone knocked on the office door.  Buffy, not looking up from the computer spreadsheet she was working on, didn't look through the door window as she called, "Yeah?"

            The door opened.

            It was Spike.

            "You know, I just love you in glasses," he said.

            Buffy quickly took them off.

            "What are you doing here?"

            "Nice to see you too."  He held up a bag.  "Brought your clothes back.  Bet you looked adorable in my jeans."

            "I'll have them sent over to the hotel-"

            "'Have them sent over'?  My my.  Aren't you just the little businesswoman."

            He had that familiar quirky smile, the gleam in his eyes.  He knew what was coming.

            At least, he knew what he wanted to come.

            "Well, I am a businesswoman," Buffy said.  "Look, running a business."

            "Six day weeks."

            "Saturdays are busy."

            "All days are busy, from what the bit tells me."  He looked around the office, full of unpacked and half catalogued crates.  "Place is doing well."

            Buffy shrugged.  "It's like I got a fairy godmother or something.  Well, maybe two.  Fairy godsisters.  Gay ones."

            Spike's eyebrows flickered at that.  "None of it due to your hard work?"

            "Well, I-"  she narrowed her eyes at him.  "Are we having a conversation?"

            "Stranger things have happened."

            Yes, Buffy thought, most of them to me.

            "Look," she said, "about last night-"

            "I'm still recovering."

            Buffy tried hard not to blush, and failed.

            "You were," his hand reached out and traced her cheek, "amazing."

            She closed her eyes.  "You-" abruptly, she stepped back.  "Stop that."

            "Stop?"  He put his head on one side.  "There's a new word.  I never seem to hear that from you."

            "Well, maybe I should say it-" she realised he was teasing her, and frowned.  "I mean it."

            "Oh, and you meant it last night," Spike came around the desk and Buffy found herself trapped between it and him.  "'Stop, Spike, don't ever stop...'"

            He was awfully close.  Buffy was backed up against the desk and Spike slipped one knee between hers.

            "No," he mocked gently, "you never tell me to stop.  Or at least," his breath was hot on her ear, "you never mean it."

            His hand slid up her thigh.

            "I mean it now," Buffy said, but the words were hardly audible.  "I want you to... to stop."

            Spike's lips brushed her earlobe.  "Make me."

            She put her hands on his shoulders, but she didn't push him very hard, and when he started kissing her neck, she didn't stop him at all.  She knew she should, she was sure she wanted to, but she didn't.  She couldn't.

            "Tell me to go," Spike murmured, and his voice hummed through her.

            "Go," Buffy whispered hoarsely.

            "And say it like you mean it."

            His hand slid up under her skirt.  She could feel his heart beating against her chest.  Her nipples were hard.  Her legs were parting themselves.

            Buffy glanced over her shoulder and saw the office door was open half an inch.

            "Someone could-"

            "Come in," Spike was stroking her hip now, "and see us," he bit her collarbone, "making out right here on your desk."

            Buffy was panting.  This had to stop.

            But right then Spike kissed her, and she really wished he hadn't, because once he started kissing her there was no way she could ever stop kissing back.  He was addictive.  He felt so good, and tasted so good, and his hands were all over her, kneeding her breast, slipping just inside her knickers and very gently fingering the dark curls there.

            Buffy had no recollection of her own hands unfastening his fly, she only realised she'd done it when Spike moaned softly because she'd taken him in her hand and was stroking him.

            "Red," he hissed against her neck, "or her girlfriend, they could come in here," his finger flicked her clitoris, and Buffy gasped sharply, "and see us.  Just look in through the window," he reached up and pulled the clasp from her hair, inhaled its scent, "and see us."

            Buffy could hardly think.  He was so big and hard, and she was getting so hot, squirming wetly against his fingers.  She pulled him towards her, rubbed him against her, and covered his mouth with her own when he groaned in pleasure.

            She lifted one leg around his waist to draw him in closer, and then he slid up inside her, and both of them froze for a brief second, before movement became important, that glorious friction, sliding and thrusting and trying hard not to make a sound.

            "Why so quiet?" Spike whispered in her ear.

            "The door is open," Buffy squeaked, as Spike reached inside her blouse and fingered her nipple.  "The gallery is full of... people..."

            "Don't you want them to hear?"

            "What?  Are you-" she broke off, because Spike dipped one finger between them and started stroking her again.

            "Feels good," he said, and she nodded helplessly.  "Looks good too.  You have any idea how damn sexy you are, Summers?  The way you move, your eyes, your hair dances when you move like that."

            He pulsed inside her, still for a few seconds, and then he whispered very close to her ear, "Don't you want them to see that too?"

            Buffy shook her head frantically, but just like last night, out on the balcony, the idea of someone, anyone - especially someone she knew - just walking in and seeing her having sex, was such a turn on she found herself grinding up against Spike's rather delectable body, just that little bit harder.

            "They hear a noise," he was suggesting now, "come to see if you're okay... You don't answer 'cos you're too busy coming your brains out.."

            Oh boy, did that sound like a good idea to Buffy.

            "And then they open the door..."

            She grabbed his buttocks and pushed him deeper inside her, and her eyes rolled back in her head, her whole body shuddering.

            "And they see you with your skirt all pushed up, your shirt hanging open, head back..."

            It was coming, it was coming, she was nearly there...

            "Me deep inside you..."

            Oh God...

            "And there's nothing you can do to stop them," Spike whispered, and Buffy came, biting down hard on his neck to keep from crying out.

            "Discovery fantasy," Spike said with satisfaction, and thrust into her until he came too, Buffy's hand over his mouth.  He licked her palm, bit the soft skin, and she gave him a warning look, her eyes half on the door.

            As soon as he was done she pushed him away, ran over and shoved the door shut, turning the key.

            "You ever hear the one about the horse and the stable door?" Spike asked.

            "I can't believe we just did that!"  Buffy rearranged her clothing frantically.

            He took a cigarette out of his duster pocket and lit up.  Buffy scurried over and grabbed it from his mouth, but before she could stub it out, Spike caught her around the waist and kissed her hard.

            "You have to go," she said.

            He pouted.  "Don't want a re-match?"

            "No!  In fact, we shouldn't even have-"

            Spike rolled his eyes.  "Enough with the 'shouldn't have's, love.  If you didn't want to, then you wouldn't.  I wasn't making you do anything."

            He looked so smug Buffy nearly slapped him.  Worse than that, he was right.  He hadn't made her do anything - well, not strictly speaking.  He hadn't forced her.  She could have stopped.

            All he'd done was make her not want to stop.

            "Go," she pointed to the door, disentangling herself from him.  "I have work to do."

            "Can I come see Will tonight?"

            "How about you go see him now?  Dawn has him at home.  Or maybe the park.  Why don't you go and look?"

            "Trying to get rid of me?"

            Buffy pressed her hands to her hot face.  "You've been in here long enough, Willow and Tara are gonna think-"

            "What?  You've been shagging your husband?  Oh no, surely there's a law against that, pet?"

            "You are not my husband."

            He grabbed her left hand and pressed his up against it.  Their rings shone in the light.  "Got a certificate at home says I am, pet."

            Buffy pulled her hand away and turned back to the computer, not looking at him.  "Could you just leave?"

            Spike looked at her a long while.  Then the door was unlocked, and he was gone, and Buffy put her head down on the desk and felt like crying.

            Spike came over that evening, and Dawn looked pleased to see him.

            "Buffy's in the bath," she rolled her eyes, "she likes to wallow for hours."

            "I remember," Spike said.  "Can I come in?"

            "Sure," she grinned and stepped back, and he glanced into the living room, saw Will on his playmat.

            "So what happened to you last night?" Spike asked, picking his son up for a cuddle.  Will gurgled happily and babbled a load of cheerful nonsense.

            "Oh, I, er, I sort of went out, with Willow and Tara..." Dawn looked down at her homework.

            "And those guys from the band?" Spike asked astutely.

            Dawn blushed.  "No," she began.

            "You're such a bad liar, bit.  Try not to blush, don't avoid eye contact, have a decent answer prepared.  Where did you go?"

            "With the guys from the band."

            "See, now you're not even trying."

            "Willow and Tara were there but they... I don't know, maybe they were drunk, 'cos they both just got all sleepy and passed out... But I didn't see them drinking."

            "Were they smoking?"

            "No.  Devon was."

            Spike said nothing.  Maybe a word with Red later might be in order.

            "Why all the blushing, bit?  Did you and the singer get up to something you shouldn't?"

            Dawn blushed even deeper.

            Will was waving his arms for his rattle and Spike, having learned a while ago that the baby liked to gnaw to help his teeth through, handed it over.

            "Dawn," he said, and she knew something serious was coming by the use of her real name, "how old are you?"

            "Seventeen."

            "Had any boyfriends?"

            Her face was crimson now.  Dawn stared furiously at her maths book.

            "Not really."

            "Kissed any boys?"

            She gave a rigid little shake of her head.  "Not until Devon."

            "Was kissing all you did?"  When Dawn's head snapped up, Spike waved a hand for silence.  "I don't want any diagrams, just... tell me in terms of bases."

            "We just kissed.  Well, and he tried to - but I told him I didn't want to, and he got all angry.  So I," Dawn's fingernails were digging in her palms, "I left."

            "You told him no and walked out?"

            She gave a tiny nod.

            Spike looked thoughtful.  "Dawn, come here."

            She looked terrified.

            "Just come here," he rolled his eyes, "I'm not gonna do anything."

            Nervously, she stood up, and walked all the way across the room, trembling.  Spike patted the sofa next to him and she sat primly, back straight, knees together.

            He put his arm around her and kissed the top of her head.

            "Proud of you, bit," he said.  "That was very much the right thing to do."

            She looked up with startled blue eyes.  "R-really?"

            He nodded, laughing, and shifted William on his lap.  "What did you think I was going to do?"

            She shrugged nervously.  "I don't know..."

            "Has Buffy been telling you horror stories about me?"

            "Buffy hardly talks about you at all."

            Spike gave a facial shrug.  "Figures.  She still mad at me?"

            "Yes, although I'm not entirely sure what for."

            "That makes two of us, love."

            He eventually got bored of waiting for Buffy, who appeared to have dissolved in the bathwater, and made his goodbyes to Dawn and a sleeping Will, leaving when it was pretty late.  Dawn took William upstairs and as she passed Buffy's room, noticed her peering out the window at Spike's car vanishing down the street.

            "You're so pathetic," she said.

            Buffy whipped round.  "I wasn't hiding," she said defensively.

            "Yes, you were."  Dawn stomped into Will's room, nearly waking him up.  "You're acting like such a baby."

            "I'm a baby?  Dawn, who's the one holding this family together?"

            "I don't know," Dawn said, "but it feels like me most of the time.  I go to school and I babysit.  That's all I do.  You know, all the kids in my class go out at least once or twice a week.  Apart from the Bronze the other night, I haven't been out since before - before Will was born."

            Buffy pulled her out of the baby's room and shut the door.

            "You wanna go out more?  Well, sure and I'll stay at home with Will while the gallery, which is only just starting to do well, completely falls apart."

            "You don't need to be there 24/7," Dawn nearly shouted.  "Willow and Tara know far more about art than you do-"

            "I have to run the place-"

            "They can do that-"

            "They're completely unpaid!  And where are they, anyway?"

            "They went out.  Couldn't stand all the tension and bullshitting in this house."

            Buffy raised her hand like she was going to slap Dawn, but instead she just marched into her room and slammed the door.

            "Oh, very mature," Dawn muttered, and did exactly the same.

            Buffy pulled the pillow over her head and tried desperately not to cry.  Why did it seem that no matter how hard she tried, something always happened to hurt her?  She tried to love Spike, and he broke her trust.  So she came home to start over, and found out she was pregnant.  Against her better judgement, she followed her heart back to England, where Spike broke her all over again, twisted and smashed and stamped on her viciously.  Then her mom died.  Then the gallery failed.

            And now, only now, eight months later, did she finally feel on top of just one area of her life, and all the others were tumbling down.  Dawn hated her.  Spike was haunting her.

            Spike.

            The cause of her life's destruction, and the only thing left from it.

            She threw the pillow on the floor and rolled on her back.  It was no use.  She'd never sleep, and just lie there getting more and more frustrated and angry and then she'd yell and scream at Dawn in the morning, and Will would pick up on it and he'd be upset, and it would be Sunday, her only day off all week, and she needed some peace.

            But first she had to get rid of this anger.

            She rolled out of bed, took off her pyjamas and tiptoed downstairs.  She taped a note to the door for Dawn, put on her long coat and boots, and got her car keys.

            She was outside the hotel in a few, very short minutes, shaking with cold and nerves as well as anger, and she very nearly pressed the Stop button on the lift and got out.  But then she arrived at the top, and there was only Spike's door there, looking at her, mocking her.  It was only last night she'd had sex right up against that door.

            I must be crazy, Buffy thought as she knocked.

            The door was wrenched open.  "Can you morons not read?  There's a Do Not Dis-"

            Spike broke off and stared at Buffy.  She stared back.  He was wearing only a pair of low-slung jeans, his hair was tousled, there was a shot glass in his hand.  Skunk Anansie was playing: Hedonism was on.  Buffy winced.

            He was the first to speak.

            "Thought you'd gone down the plughole, love."

            "Can I come in?"

            He stood back, eyes following her.  On the expensive stereo, Skin sang, '_Just because you feel good, doesn't make you right.  Just because you feel good, still want you here tonight_.'

            Buffy walked over and pressed the Skip button.

            '_I've been biding my time.  Been so subtly kind..._'

            This time it was Spike who winced.

            "You wanted something, Summers?"

            "Why do you call me that?"

            "You don't seem to want to be a Dashwood."

            She said nothing, her eyes fixed on the dancing bars of the graphic equaliser.

            '_I've got to think so selfishly, 'cos you're the face inside of me_...'

            Damn music.  Why did it always get inside her head?

            "Spike," she turned, suddenly nervous.  "Why do you keep coming round?"

            '_I've been biding my days.  You see, evidently it pays..._'

            "You know why."

            "Tell me."

            His eyes were dark and unfathomable.  Buffy knew he'd been drinking - by the looks of the bottle on the table, for quite some time.

            '_I've been a friend with unbiased views, and then secretly, lust after you_...'

            "Why are you here?" Spike repeated, draining his glass and pouring some more.

            Buffy unbelted her coat, unfastened the buttons, and let it fall.  Underneath, she was totally naked.

            '_So now you feel lusty, you're bored and bemused..._'

            Spike drained that glass, poured another, drained that.

            '_You wanna do someone else?  So you should be by yourself, instead of here with me, secretly..._'

            "Didn't get enough earlier?"

            Buffy didn't know what to say.  She just needed... something, something to make the anger, the pain, the frustration go away.  Just for a little while.  To have someone do something for her, to make her feel better.  Something more than just a mom, just a sister, just a boss.

            "Don't you want me?"

            Spike crossed the room in a few long strides and grabbed her to him, crushed her mouth under his, fingers digging into her flesh.  The hard fabric of his jeans grated on her skin, his teeth bit down hard on her lip.

            "Want you, Summers?  I've always bloody wanted you."

            '_Trying hard to think pure, bloody hard when I'm raw_...'  
            Blood was pounding in Buffy's ears.  "Why?  What for?  Just for sex?"

            "No!" Spike yelled.  "Not for sex, not just for sex, dammit.  I want you," his fingers fisted in her hair, "all of you."

            "Why?" Buffy insisted, her voice cracking.

            "Because I love you, Buffy.  Don't tell me you don't know that, 'cos-"

            But Buffy reached up and grabbed him back and kissed him, hard, brutal, her nails drawing blood from his shoulders, his back, his arms.

            "Who got you good and mad?" Spike stumbled back a few paces, rubbing his arms.

            "You did."

            He almost laughed.  "Me?  What'd I do?"

            "You - you came and you - you ruined everything, you changed everything, you made me into this - this _thing_, got me into this _state_, and now I can't - I only feel - I just-"

            "So it's nothing big, just our whole relationship?"

            "We don't have a relationship," Buffy yelled.

            Spike raised his hand but Buffy caught it, and before he could hit her, she smacked him across one perfect cheekbone.  Astonished, he struggled against her, and where the old Buffy could probably have held him off, she wasn't as strong as she used to be.  Visiting the gym was not high on her list of priorities.

            His fist landed on the edge of her jaw, a glancing blow, but it made her furious.  He'd hit her before, but he'd had good cause, being that she was beating him up at the time.

            She started hammering at him with her fists, some blows harder than others, some just taps, most enough to bruise him.  Spike stopped trying to fight her, recognising that she was far too angry and hurt to be stopped, not wanting to hurt her, not wanting to start something he might not be able to stop.  He was slightly too drunk to trust himself in a fight.

            Eventually Buffy burned herself out, reeling away from him, her hands to her face, trying desperately hard not to cry.  The song was still playing and the words, '_So now you've been busted, you're caught, feeling used_,' swirled around her head.

            She struck out at the CD player with her fist, once, twice, three times, until the music abruptly ended and all she could hear was Spike's laboured breathing and her own ragged intakes of breath.  Her eyes stung.

            "Buffy?" Spike said from behind her.

            "You were supposed to make it better," she muttered hoarsely, her throat closing over with tears.

            He touched her shoulder and she turned around, looked up at his face which was already coming up in bruises, and the tears slipped down her face.

            "Did I just do that?"

            He nodded.

            "I-" he folded his arms around her and held her as she cried, kissed her when she lifted her tearstained face to his, made love to her, although she was just fucking him in return.

            When she left, he poured out more bourbon and chainsmoked until the sun came up.

  



	15. Chapter Fourteen: The State of Things

Chapter Fourteen:  The State of Things

_            A.N. Yes, there are more lyrics coming up.  I promise I'll try and stop - it's not a songfic after all.  But after listening to this the other day, I suddenly realised it was the tale of this relationship.  I'd think Neil wrote it about Spike and Buffy, except it was done in 1996...  Anyway.  It's called Distant Sun.  Go download it now_.

            "You're sure?" Glory said.  "He actually goes to her house?"

            "And she to his hotel, your magnificent ladyship."

            She paced about.  "She told him the baby was dead.  You heard that.  Why is he going there?"

            "Well, maybe because the baby isn't dead."

            Glory spun about.  "_What_?  How long has the baby not been dead?"

            The small man cowering in front of her gave a nonplussed look.

            "Er, since it was born, oh glorious one."

            Glory marched over and grabbed him by the ear.  "_How long have you known_?"

            "Just a few days, I came straight back here to tell you..."

            "And he goes to see it?  What is it?"

            "It's a baby, your-"

            "I mean is it a girl or a stupid boy?"

            "A boy, oh merciful and beautiful-"

            She dropped him on the floor and he felt at his sore ear.  Good job she was paying him so much.  And not just in money.  Glory's sexual favours were something to behold.

            "Well, then something must be done."

            "But what?"

            "We have to get rid of it," she said simply.

            Buffy rolled her aching shoulders.  She'd spent most of the morning lugging heavy boxes of paintings around and most of the afternoon cataloguing them.  It was a Sunday, and she was in the gallery all alone, the radio playing in the background to keep her from going mad.

            It wasn't working.

            She picked up the phone, dialled a guiltily familiar number, and said, two words.  "I'm alone."

            Ten minutes later the door was open - despite that she'd locked it and had the only key - and Spike had her half naked on the floor.

            It had been going on for weeks now.  Buffy was starting to despise herself - both for using Spike, and for needing to.  Part of her wished he'd just go away and leave her alone, and part of her was so glad he was there.  She felt alive when she was with him.  She could just let everything slide away on a wave of mindless bliss.  It didn't last long, but it helped.

            And then it was back to Dawn getting tetchy with her, Willow and Tara effortlessly outclassing her in the gallery, Anya wittering on about how much more money than Buffy she'd made that week, Xander's stoic silence.  He'd barely spoke to her since she'd told him that Spike was going to be a big part of Will's life.  Gone was the open offer of a lift to the nursery or babysitting: now he was always too busy to help out.

            Anya, with her characteristic bluntness, had told her it was because Xander thought Spike was a bad influence on them all, and he'd hurt Buffy before, he was going to hurt her again, and she was just too damn stupid to realise it.

            But Buffy realised it.  She was letting him hurt her.  Sometimes literally.  She was having to wear longer sleeves and higher necks to cover the bruises she got from him.  At the time, she never minded, but afterwards she cursed herself for letting him mark her.  She was sure they used to have sex without getting violent, but she could barely remember it.

            Spike made public appearances every now and then, coming over to see Will in the afternoons or evenings, helping Dawn with her homework - at least she was talking to someone, and Buffy found out most of the important things in her sister's life through her lover - or taking the baby for a stroll around the park.  He didn't see any reason why he and Buffy couldn't go public - after all, if she didn't want anything to do with him then why the hell was she sleeping with him?  Or, for that matter, still married to him - but she was adamant that her friends mustn't know.

            "Xander hates me already," she said, "and Willow thinks you're evil too."

            "I'd noticed the way she left the house whenever I got near it, pet."

            "Well, now they've officially moved out it does sort of make it easier."

            "They?  Girlfriend can't stand me either?"

            "Tara - she doesn't exactly say much, does she?"

            "Not a lot.  But then if I was shagging Red, I probably wouldn't, either."

            "You fancy Willow?"

            "Course I do.  She's hot.  And she's a lesbian.  What's not to fancy?"

            And Buffy had bashed him for that, and he'd caught her and kissed her, and they'd had some more sex.

            Sex was pretty much all they did.  In his hotel, in her house on the rare occasions it was empty, in both their cars, the elevator at the hotel, the gallery, the park, the Bronze, back alleys all over Sunnydale.  He'd turn up and within seconds they'd be pulling each others' clothes off.  Sometimes Buffy went to him, if her day had been hard or she'd argued with Dawn or Xander had given her the cold shoulder.

            Solace.  It was all she wanted - or all she could figure out that she wanted - and what Spike was ready to give her.  She didn't ask why, and neither did he.

            But he was getting bolder.  Making moves on her when Dawn was in the house, coming in to 'talk' during gallery opening hours, making dirty phone calls in the middle of the day.  One time Buffy had picked up the phone while Tara was in the office with her, and it had been Spike, murmuring filthy things that had made Buffy get very hot, panting and wriggling, and in the end she'd simply put the phone down and driven straight to his hotel and shagged him into unconsciousness.

            Lying on the smooth wooden floor of the gallery, naked, arms and legs entangled, it was almost easy to imagine it was all normal.  But Spike knew that in a few minutes she'd get up, drag her clothes on, try and make sense of her hair, and leave, without very many words to him.

            He reached for his jeans pocket and lit up a cigarette, counting down to her inevitable exit.  Five, four, three-

            "Hey," Buffy said, "no smoking in my gallery."

            "Stop me."

            She grabbed the cigarette and stubbed it out on his stomach.  Spike shot bolt upright.

            "Ow!  Bloody hell, woman!" He stared at her.  "That fucking hurt!"

            Buffy shrugged, standing up and going after her clothes.

            "And she's off," Spike remarked, lying back on the floor, rubbing the burn on his stomach.  "You know, Dru used to do that."

            Buffy said nothing.

            "Did I do something wrong?"

            She turned back, fastening her jeans.  "No," she said.  "You know this isn't about you."

            "Funny how you know exactly what I want to hear."

            "I mean I - forget it."

            "Not even talking to me now, pet.  You know, you really know how to make a man feel wanted."

            He stood up and pulled on his jeans, shrugged into his shirt.

            "You're leaving?" Buffy paused.

            "Damn right I am.  For once.  Before you chuck me out."  He threw his duster on.  "And don't bother coming over tonight.  I'm closed for business," he said, flicking the Open sign as he stalked out of the gallery.

            Buffy scrunched up her eyes.  This had to stop.

            She went into the office, got the phone book, and started dialling.

            She didn't come over that night, or the next.  She didn't call him to come to the gallery, and when he came to see Will, Buffy left the house before he could say a word to her.

            The reason became clear a few days later, when Room Service brought up a big fat package addressed to Lord Spellingdon.  He ripped it open, and found divorce papers.

            He called Buffy's house and Dawn answered.  It was hard to keep the fury out of his voice.

            "Dawn.  I need to speak to your sister."

            "She's not here.  She went out for a run."

            "Did she take her phone with her?"

            "Uh..." He heard her moving about.  "No, it's here."

            "Tell her to call me the second she gets in.  And if she won't, you call me and I'll speak to her."

            She picked up the measured calm in his voice.  "Is everything okay?  Did something happen?"

            "No.  Everything's fine.  I just need to speak to Buffy."

            "I'll tell her to call," Dawn said, sounding puzzled.  "Bye, Spike."

            "Bye, niblet."

            He put the phone down, and realised his hand was shaking.  He reached for his packet of fags, the bottle of bourbon, and the CD remote.

            Spike had a large CD collection, and at the forefront were naturally the Sex Pistols.  The ones he kept on public display were all punk or hard rock, a few classics like the White Album and Dark Side Of The Moon thrown in for good measure.

            But right at the back, where no one could see them, were the ones he needed for comfort.  Leonard Bernstein.  Bryan Adams.  Crowded House.

            He took out Recurring Dream and put it on.  Then he drank some more bourbon.  Then he relaxed a bit.

            '_Tell me all the things you would change  
            I don't pretend to know what you want  
            When you come around and spin my top  
            Time and again, time and again_...'

            Sodding Summers woman.  She spun his top whenever she felt like it - and what did he get?  The pleasure of her company?  It wasn't even that pleasurable any more.  Oh, the sex was still amazing, and there were moments - usually when she was asleep - that he looked at her and her face was soft, young again, her arms held him tenderly.  She was his, really his, mind, body and soul.

            And then she opened her eyes.  And that bloody mouth.  
            '_No fire where I lit my spark  
            I am not afraid of the dark  
            Where your words devour my heart  
            And put me to shame, put me to shame_...'

            Shame?  She should know something about that, Spike thought bitterly, lighting another fag.  She'd been so ashamed the first time, and then after the Bronze, and then... And then she'd started coming to him.

            Well, there was fire, but not the sort he wanted.  If he looked behind her eyes she just looked... well, dead.  There was just darkness there.  He knew he should give up, but he also knew there was something deep down there that he could get at.  If she was totally dead inside, then how could she do the things she did?  
            '_You're still so young to travel so far  
            Old enough to know who you are  
            Wise enough to carry the scars  
            Without any blame, there's no one to blame_...'

            He closed his eyes.  Neil, mate, he thought, how did you know?  Did you meet Buffy or something?

            Except about the blame.  They were both to blame.  But then, she was only doing what she did, because of what he did, and he only did what he did because of what she did... So who was to blame?  
            '_It's easy to forget what you learned  
            Waiting for the thrill to return  
            Feeling your desire burn  
            And drawn to the flame_...'

            It'd burn them both eventually.  He rubbed his stomach.  Already had, in a literal sense.  The thing was neither of them could stop.  He craved her even while he was with her.  He needed her, even if she did leave him feeling empty.  Every time he swore he'd say no next time, and every time he took her back.  Forgot everything he'd resolved.  All for the heat of her.  Moths and flames.  
            '_And I'm lying on the table  
            Washed out in a flood   
            Like a Christian feeling vengeance from above  
            I don't pretend to know what you want  
            But I offer love_...'  
            Spike grabbed the remote and stopped the CD.  Silence filled the room.

            That was getting a little too close for comfort.

            Someone knocked at the door and Spike glanced wearily over at it.  "Piss off," he yelled.

            The knock came again.

            "Please go the fuck away."

            "Spike," came Buffy's voice, and he threw his empty glass at the door.  It made a thud, then fell down to the thick carpet, unbroken.

            Stupid sodding piece of shit glassware.  Things can't even break when you want them to.

            He stomped over to the door, yanked it open, and stomped back to his chair without looking at her.  With no glass, he had to drink straight from the bottle.  He lit up another cigarette and inhaled so deeply half of it was gone by the time he breathed out.

            Still she said nothing.

            Eventually he took another swig of bourbon and chanced a glance at her through the reflection in the big panoramic window.  She stood quietly.  He could see jogging clothes in her reflection.  So no nakedness, this time.  Can't have everything.

            "Night falls and she appears," he said, half to himself.

            "I thought face to face might be better."

            "Really?  So that's why you sent me these," he chucked the packet of papers in her general direction, "without any warning."

            "I thought the last year might have been warning enough."

            "Why didn't you do it before?"

            Her answer was simple.  "Couldn't afford it."

            "So you stayed married to me for financial reasons?"

            "Hey, I never asked for a cent from you."

            True, Spike thought, but you still got a fortune.  He ached to tell her about all the paintings, the artefacts, the sculptures he'd sourced, bought, stolen, for her.  But Spike had inherited more than a title from his father:  he'd got his stupid pride, too.

            He stood up and faced her.  Sweatpants, vest and a little hoodie.  Pink cheeks.  Messy hair.  Adorable.

            "So that's it," he said.  "Over.  Or are you still gonna come here looking for cold comfort?"

            "That's over too," she said quietly.  "I-"

            She broke off, and Spike watched her intently.

            "I'm sorry," she said finally.  "I've been using you.  I'm sorry."

            He didn't say anything.  There wasn't anything he could say.  He didn't even know if he was angry or touched or confused or hurt or all of the above.

            "Will you sign?" Buffy asked, and he was still a while longer before he shook his head.

            "No."

            "Please don't make this harder."

            "I couldn't, pet.  Look at us - married less than a year and already there are divorce papers."

            "There would have been papers earlier if-"

            "If you hadn't been so sodding proud and refused to ask anyone for help," Spike snapped.

            Buffy dropped her eyes, but she didn't say anything.

            "God, what does it take to get a bloody reaction out of you?" Spike yelled.  "All you do is sodding mope and shrug and bloody _cope_," he said it like a bad word.

            "What am I supposed to do?  Sit around and cry because something else in my life has gone wrong?  Spike, I am tired of crying.  You know after Mom died, I cried for two weeks solid?  Seriously.  With no provocation.  I couldn't stop crying."

            "Hormones," Spike muttered.

            "Well, maybe, but don't forget my mother had just died and my husband was-" she held up her hand "-as far as I knew - fucking someone else."  She shrugged.  "They put me on the Pill to work things out.  Settled my hormones.  Meant I was only crying for about twelve hours out of every twenty-four, instead of the whole lot."

            Spike nodded.  He'd figured she was on some kind of contraception, because she'd stopped asking for condoms.  Then he'd seen the packet in her bathroom, and decided not to press the issue.  Right now, it wouldn't help anyone for her to get pregnant again.

            "You think divorcing me will help?"

            Buffy sighed, and for the first time since she'd walked in, moved from her spot on the carpet.  She flopped down in one of the plush chairs opposite Spike.  He remained standing.

            "I can't see how it could make anything worse," she said.

            "No?  Is it even going to make any difference?  I'm not going to just go away, Buffy-"

            "I didn't say you had to.  You can still see Will, as much as you like.  You're a good father," she said quietly, and right then Spike knew he'd do anything to keep her.

            He got down on his knees in front of her and took her hands.  "Buffy.  Please.  Tell me why you're doing this?"

            "Because there's no reason for us to be married."

            "There's no reason for us to be apart, either."

            "There are-"

            "No reasons," he repeated firmly.  "You thought I'd cheated, but I didn't.  You told me Will was dead, but he isn't."  A thought occurred to him.  "Dawn has him?"

            She nodded.

            "I still love you, Buffy," Spike said quietly.  "I loved you a long time before I realised I did.  And I'm not going to stop loving you because of some stupid misunderstanding or this.. this apathy or whatever it is that's wrong with you."

            "You think there's something wrong with me?"

            "You hardly speak to me unless you're actually fucking me.  No, don't flinch - that's all you've been doing is just fucking me.  Emotionless sensations-"

            "How can you say that?" Buffy whispered.

            Spike raised his eyebrows.  Oh, was he getting somewhere?

            "The whole time, I've just been trying to... I was so angry and I just needed... You made me feel, Spike, something that wasn't misery and lethargy.  Sometimes you got me so mad-" she broke off, tracing a recent bruise on his cheek.  "Dawn said you told her you'd taken up boxing," she said with a slight smile.

            "Best I could come up with."  He had to keep her smiling.  "Maybe I should.  Reckon I'd look good with those big fat gloves on..."

            "Those shiny shorts," Buffy giggled.

            "Oh yeah.  Would I be hot, or what?"

            She stroked his cheek again.  "It might mess up your face."

            "I was getting a bit tired of being so pretty anyway.  You know, the first time a woman faints at the sight of you is flattering, but when they do it every day it's just boring."

            She was rolling her eyes now, but still smiling.  Spike nearly laughed in delight.  It had been so long since he saw her smiling properly.

            He touched her lips.  "I meant it," he said.

            "About the boxing?"

            "About you.  Us.  I still love you, Buffy.  Always will.  I'm not about to give up on you."

            "Even when I'm such a basket case?"

            "I like to think I enjoy a challenge."

            She closed her eyes.  The smile faded.

            Damn.

            "Spike, it's not going to work-"

            "Why not?" He was pleading now, still kneeling there in front of her, holding her hands.

            "It just - it can't.  We're too different."

            "Can't we want it to work?"

            "Is wanting enough?  I wanted you to come to me after Will was born-"

            "I did!  I _did_ come.  And you told me to go.  Remember?"

            She squeezed her eyes shut.  "I'm so sorry," she whispered, and she didn't protest when Spike put his arms around her and held her.  She sniffed against him, then her arms slowly sneaked around him.

            Spike closed his eyes and held her tight.  Neither of them said anything, neither moved very much.  Buffy sighed against him, and Spike said, very softly, "I don't pretend to know what you want, but I offer love."

            Buffy went still.

            "Not that I thought I'd ever be quoting song lyrics to you, love, but-"

            "It's easy to forget what you learnt," she sniffed.  "Waiting for the-"

            He pulled her head up and stared at her in amazement.  "You know Crowded House?"

            "Tara had a CD.  I made a copy."

            He stared some more.

            "Never had you down for a fan, though," Buffy said, and he realised she was teasing him.

            Oh, sweet lord, his Buffy was back.

            "Well, I'm full of surprises," he said, giving her his best smile.  He brushed his lips across hers, and it hardly even qualified as a kiss, but it made his pulse quicken.

            There was a long silence.

            "Maybe," he breathed, "this isn't a good idea.  We should-"

            "It's a good idea," Buffy said, and kissed him properly.  But not a hard, angry kiss; a soft, sweet one, like the ones they'd shared when they were a proper couple.  Married.  Baby on the way.  Happy.  Blissful.

            Once they'd started with the kissing it got rather hard to stop, so they didn't stop.  Kissing turned into touching, and touching to stroking and licking, all of it sweet and slow.

            And then Buffy's eyes connected with Spike's, and she smiled, and he smiled, and he tore her hoodie off and threw it halfway across the room.  She wrapped her arms tight around him, pulled at his t-shirt, pushed at his jeans, rubbed her heel against the small of his back.

            "Go on," she said, as he pulled her sweatpants down and slipped his fingers between her legs.  "Now.  _Please_."

            He slid into her, and it was so good he lost balance, falling backwards against the glass-topped table.  It, unlike the shot glass, shattered into millions of pieces, and Buffy yelled in alarm as Spike grabbed hold of her and rolled her free from the debris, protecting her with his body.

            "Oh my God," she laughed. And Spike was so entranced by that laugh that he completely forgot he'd just rolled over several feet of broken glass.  They made love for the first time in months: energetic and happy and pleasurable.  And when it was over, Spike pulled Buffy in close and kissed her and held her, and she didn't make any move to leave.

            Eventually she sighed.  "I should-" she began, and Spike felt like hitting her,  no - hitting himself.  He should have seen it coming.

            "Go, right," he said, starting to move away, but she shook her head, frowning.

            "Don't go.  Going bad.  Stay," she said, and, confused, Spike did as he was told.

            "I was going to say, I should probably call Dawn," she said.  "She told me to call you and, um, the next thing I knew I was sort of here, so..."

            Spike grinned and kissed her forehead.  "Dammit, I guess one of us has to move."

            "Otherwise this could be very entertaining," Buffy giggled, picturing them both trying to get to the phone without breaking contact.  She kissed his nose and disentangled herself-

            And then she stopped.

            "Spike," she said urgently, and grabbed his arm.

            "Ow," he said.

            "Yes, ow!"  He was still half-wearing his shirt, and she pulled it off him.

            "_Ow_!"

            "Sorry."  She stared at his arm.  It had gone straight through the glass and taken most of his weight when he rolled them away from the wreckage.  It was cut to shreds.  Buffy could see bits of glass stuck in there.

            "You need a doctor," she rose to her feet.

            "It's fine," Spike said.

            "It's clearly not!"

            "Your concern is touching, love, but really, I just need to get the glass out.  I'll be fine.  I've had worse."

            Buffy touched the bullet wound on his shoulder - the wound that had been her fault, so bloody long ago.

                She kissed his injured hand.  "I'll call Room Service," she said, "they'll have bandages."


	16. Chapter Fifteen: Love, Buffy

Chapter Fifteen: Love, Buffy

            Room Service delivered a box of first aid things and clean towels and Buffy took Spike upstairs to the bathroom, sat him on the edge of the bath, and got a pair of eyebrow tweezers from her bag.

            "How did you not notice your arm was full of glass?"

            "I was sort of concentrating on something else," he darted a quick kiss on her lips.

            "You really probably should see a-"

            "No," he said.  "I'm fine.  Had enough of hospitals for a lifetime."

            She pulled out bits of glass, some of them pretty big, some very tiny.  Frowning, she reached for her reading glasses so she could see the little bits better.

            "Did I tell you you look adorable in those?" Spike said.

            "Not in the last five minutes."

            "You look adorable in those."

            Buffy glanced up, and smiled.

            "Wow.  What's that - three smiles in one night?  Hold on a bit, who is this girl?"

            "Ha ha."

            "Seriously, Buffy-"

            "You keep calling me that."

            Spike was nonplussed.  "I was under the impression that was your name."

            "I mean, not Summers or 'woman' or 'hey, fuck-buddy'."

            "You were never my fuck-buddy."

            "Oh, I so was."  She dug deep for a granule of glass and Spike winced.

            "I mean, I never thought of it like that.  It was always... You were always so angry but I just wanted..."

            "I know."

            "I don't think you do."

            She arched an eyebrow.  "I know, Spike.  I could see it.  That's what made me even angrier.  I mean, couldn't you just find it in your heart to get mad at me?  Use me like I was using you?  Just once, stop me feeling so bloody guilty?"

            He stared.

            "What?"

            "You are sodding insane, woman."

            "Again with the 'woman'."

            "You're not taking this seriously."

            "No, I think for once I am.  Spike," she put down the tweezers, "this whole thing has been about me wanting to punish myself."

            "What for?"

            "Usually, what I was doing at the time.  For screwing you over."

            "You didn't screw me over."

            "You really don't think so?"

            "Newsflash, love: I don't call getting regularly shagged by the woman I love, the same as getting screwed over."

            "Didn't you hate that I was so..."

            "Distant?  Sure.  I want every time to be like this time," he stroked her face, and she nestled against his hand.  "Well, most times.  You do know how to hurt me in all the right places."

            She rolled her eyes.  "Hold still while I get this bit."

            She swabbed his whole forearm with stinging antiseptic and covered the worst cuts with bits of gauze.  Then came a bandage, and she wrapped it up so much Spike was practically mittened.

            "You said you wanted a big fat glove," she joked.

            Spike caught her chin with his bandaged fingers.  "I love you," he said.

            "I know."

            But she didn't say it in return.

            They went to bed and made love again, and again, and Spike fell asleep with Buffy's arms around him, her head on his shoulder.

            She watched him sleeping for a while.  It didn't seem to matter how much she kicked him, he always came back.  Like a dog.  A big, snarling, rabid, insane dog, who turned into a puppy if she tickled him right.

            Yeah - that's what he was.  A guard dog.  He didn't like Xander, he just about tolerated the girls, but he loved her and Will and Dawn and guarded them fiercely.  Even when Buffy savaged him.  He still came back.

            He loved her.

            She sighed.  The last few weeks it felt like everything had been going wrong, everything was a mess, she'd broken it all.  And the only thing she had to anchor herself was Spike.  And here he still was, still trying to make it better for her.

            Man, she owed him.

            In the morning, Buffy tried to sneak back in through the kitchen door, but Dawn was feeding William and herself, and she looked up and shook her head.

            "Nice of you to call."

            "I was-"

            "With Spike?"  Dawn took in her mussed hair and bare face.  "Got it."

            "Listen, Dawn," Buffy sat down at the counter, "I - there are a couple things I have to tell you."

            Dawn looked pissy, but she didn't interrupt.

            "First of all, I'm sorry."

            Dawn looked up in surprise.

            "The last few weeks... I've just been... I don't know what I've been.  Trying to work things out, trying to get through things and I didn't even know why.  I've been awful to you and not very fair to Will either.  And I'm sorry."

            "Okay," Dawn said slowly.

            "I spent last night with Spike," Buffy said.

            "Kinda gathered that."

            "And it wasn't the first time.  I mean, well, I haven't spent the night with him since the Bronze, but..."

            "You've been sleeping with him for weeks," Dawn said matter-of-factly.  "Oh, please, you thought I hadn't noticed?  We could power the whole street with the electricity you two generate.  And all those sudden trips to the store?  Jogging?"

            "Hey, I was actually-" Buffy began.  "Well, sometimes I was."  She sagged.  "You really knew?"

            "Uh-huh."  Dawn looked quite pleased with herself.  "Tara too.  We worked it out."

            "Does anyone else know?"

            "Well, we figured you'd tell us after a while.  Although you didn't..."

            "Well," Buffy twisted her hands, "um, it wasn't exactly... We're not - I mean, we weren't really... together.  It was a bit..."

            "You were just sleeping with him."

            Deciding that was the cleanest way to put it, Buffy nodded.  "Pretty much."

            "You were always so snippy with him.  You know he still really loves you."

            "I know."

            "Do you still love him?"

            Buffy was silent.

            "Buffy?"

            "I - I don't know.  I've been so horrible to him, I... How can I still love him and treat him like that?"

            Dawn shrugged, reaching for the cloth on the counter and wiping some baby food from William's chin.  "He ever tell you about Drusilla?"

            "I met Drusilla, remember?"

            "Vividly.  I remember her trying to kill me.  And Spike.  And you," Dawn added as an afterthought.  "He said he was in love with her for years, and she used to do awful things to him.  Cheat on him, torture him, play mind games with him.  But he still loved her.   It was only when she left him for Angel that he realised she'd never loved him anyway."

            Buffy frowned.  She knew all this.  "Your point being?"

            "Spike said he did some pretty awful things to her.  He wouldn't tell me what," she put on her I'm-not-a-kid face, "but I can kinda figure it out.  My point is, he still loved her, really loved her, but he still hurt her."

            "You think I still love Spike even after what I've been doing to him?"

            "I think you wouldn't even be thinking about whether you loved him, unless you really felt something."

            Buffy sighed.  She stood up, feeling tired, but not as bone-deep weary as she had the last few weeks.  Something in her was lighter.

            "And while we're on the subject of coming clean," Dawn said as her sister flicked the kettle on, "there's something else you should know.  About the gallery."

            Buffy turned to face her, eyebrows raised.  "Don't tell me.  Spike's been secretly throwing money at it?"

            Dawn made a face.  "Well, um..."

            He woke in the morning to find his big bed empty, and yelled in frustration.  Up to her old tricks.  Sodding off before it got light like some kind of bloody vampire.

            And then he turned over, and saw the note written on hotel paper in Buffy's handwriting.

            '_Hey.  You looked so peaceful when you slept.  I didn't want to disturb you.  Have to go and open up shop and check the house hasn't burned down or anything.  Thank you for last night.  Will you come by later?_

_            Love, Buffy x'_

            He read it through again.  Love, Buffy.

            It wasn't a runaway note.  She wanted to see him again.

            More fuck-buddy-ness?  Or properly, this time?

            He took a shower and shaved and got dressed, slowly, thoughtfully.  Clean clothes.  Less of the leather - not counting his duster, obviously.  The light blue shirt she'd once admired him in.  Leaving the hotel, he casually swiped one of the flower displays.  No one stopped him - you didn't argue with a man who had that much money, that much power, and came in at three am covered in bruises.

            The gallery was peaceful, but by no means empty.  Willow regarded him warily as he went past.  Tara gave a hesitant smile.

            "Buffy in the office?"

            She shook her head and pointed upstairs.  Spike jogged up the open steps and found her halfway up a stepladder, hanging paintings.

            "Nice," he said.  "Bunny girl found a new medium?"

            Buffy jumped, but held her balance.  "They're actually selling quite well.  Anya came in and screamed at them and everyone's convinced it's shock art."

            "As opposed to just plain scary," Spike tilted his head.  "That's not art."

            "Not like the stuff you've been sending."

            He froze.

            Buffy climbed back down the ladder.

            "I ought to be mad at you," she said.  "But it's selling.  It's working.   Without that, my whole life would be crap, as opposed to just most of it."

            "Most of it?"

            "Well, Xander still hates me and - actually, Dawn and I sort of had a talk this morning.  She was the one who told me."

            "Bloody little bit."

            Buffy regarded him for a while.  Her eyes flickered over the massive flower arrangement.  "Accessorising the leather?"

            "They're for you."

            "Did you steal them?"

            "Love, I can't be seen going into a sodding flower shop."

            Buffy laughed and took the flowers.  "Thank you," she said, and Spike knew she wasn't just talking about the flowers.

            "Welcome," he said, and she knew he understood.

            Buffy took the flowers downstairs, to the office, then she paused, turned around, and put them in the window instead.

            "Brightens the place up," she said.

            "You brighten it," Spike said.  "You've got your glow back."

            Buffy stood on the other side of the gallery and regarded him.  Clean and shiny, paler colours than usual, although of course he still had the duster.  He wouldn't be Spike without the duster.  She really loved that duster.

            She walked over and softly kissed him on the lips.  "You gave it back to me," she said quietly.

            Spike looked down at her, and the love in his eyes was shining.

            Buffy made a decision.  "It's kinda quiet around here," she said.  "Afternoon lull.  You reckon the girls could handle it on their own?"

            He frowned warily.  "Probably, pet..."

            "Well, I have to finish with the bunny girl's daubs of horror, but when I'm done, maybe we could... go for a walk, or something?  In the park?"

            "Just you and me?"

            "Well, and maybe Will, too."

            "I'd like that."  He smiled, and she smiled back.

            "Cool.  Okay.  You go and pick him up, and I'll meet you back a the house in, say, half an hour?  Forty-five minutes?"

            He nodded and kissed her lips again.  "It's a plan."

            She watched him leave in a swirl of leather and pheromones, and turned to find Tara grinning at her and Willow smiling a bit.

            "Can't believe you guys have been lying to me all this time," Buffy grumbled.

            "Got the job done, didn't we?"

            "I suppose now you're gonna go back to England?"

            They exchanged looks.  "Well, actually... We were kinda planning on staying.  Spike's paying us okay and-"

            "No," Buffy said, "I'm going to be paying you.  You work for the gallery, you get paid by the gallery.  You guys have made this work.  You deserve a share of the profits.  A big share."

            Willow gave a little happy wiggle.  Tara smiled gratefully.  "Whatever you can afford," she said.

            "You'll get a bonus if you look after the place while I take the afternoon off?"

            "Deal," Willow said, and stuck out her hand.  "And be nice to Spike."

            "I thought you hated Spike?"

            "I thought you did.  I was being supportive."

            Buffy rolled her eyes and not for the first time that day, she felt like laughing.

            Spike had picked William up from his daycare centre a couple of times before, and the staff no longer asked him for ID or phoned Buffy to check if William was really allowed to leave with this maniac.  He strapped the baby seat into the DeSoto and drove as carefully as he ever would to Buffy's house.  He didn't have a key, but then that was never much of a problem to someone who'd learned to pick a lock when he was eight.

            Feeling very modern and super-dad, Spike took the baby upstairs and changed his diaper.  Just as he was fastening William's clothes, he heard something downstairs.

            "Buffy?"  He glanced at his watch.  "That was quick."

            Nothing.

            "Dawn?"

            Silence.

            Spike frowned.  He carried William through into his room, set him in his playpen and pressed his finger to his lips.  Then he headed for the stairs, picking up a candlestick from Buffy's room as he went.

            He heard someone moving around in the kitchen and made to go that way, and then suddenly, horribly, his nostrils filled with smoke.  Not the nicotine kind.  The fire kind.

            Shit.  There had to be a fire extinguisher around here somewhere.  At home he'd have laughed at someone who put something like that in his house, but this was California.  Everyone was paranoid about everything.

            "Looking for this?" came a voice, and Spike froze, because it was Glory.  And she was throwing the fire extinguisher out of the kitchen window.  The living room was full of cracking flames and the kitchen wasn't far behind.

            "What the fuck are you doing?"

            "Duh," she said, "I'm setting the house on fire."  She clocked his candlestick.  "Nice weapon.  Lord Black, in the hallway, with the candlestick."

            "Good guess," Spike said, and lobbed it at her.  Glory shrieked and ducked and it caught her shoulder.

            "Ow," she said, sounding very annoyed, and pulled a gun out from her bag.  "Look, Precious, just be a good boy and pop into the kitchen for me, will you?  I'll even shoot you so it'll be nice and quick."

            "You're trying to kill me?"

            "Wow, you're smart.  I can see that private school education did you some good."

            "It was a public school," Spike rolled his eyes, looking around for something else to use as a weapon.

            "No, your daddy paid for it-"

            "That's what they're called in England, you dink.  Bloody hell.  What's this all for, Glory?"

            "Again with the 'duh'.  I want the title," Glory stamped her pretty little foot in its expensive heel that somehow looked quite cheap on her.

            "You can't have it."  The fire was mostly at the back of the house, and Will's room was at the front.  He just needed to stop Glory from shooting him, and then he could go and get the kid.  Get out.  Call the fire department-

            "I can be a dowager countess," she tossed her hair.  "If I marry someone and have a kid, he can inherit-"

            "Did you forget about my sisters?"

            "Oh, like they're ever gonna have kids.  And if they do," she shrugged, "I'll just get rid of them too."

            "You're planning to knock out my entire family just so your nonexistant kid can inherit a title that means fuck-all anyway?  And maybe you're forgetting something, but there is still the slight problem of my father.  Or are you planning on killing him too?"

            "Spike," Glory looked impatient, "he's already dying."

            His eyes narrowed.  "What did you do?"

            "I didn't do anything.  If you corresponded with him every now and then you might know that he has a heart defect.  It's been killing him for years."

            Was it his imagination, or did she actually look slightly sad at that?

            "He needs an heir before he dies."

            "He has one," Spike said, pointing at himself.  "Two, actually."

            "But the wrong ones," Glory shook her head, levelling the pistol at him.  "You've been shot before, right?  A bit of melted metal inside you won't puzzle the coroner too much."

            There was nothing to hand, so Spike used what he had.  He ran at Glory, kicked the gun from her hand.  A shot fired somewhere at the ceiling, and above the crackle of the fire, something groaned ominously.

            William started crying.

            Spike smacked his fist into Glory's face, her re-made nose snapping with a satisfying crack.  But she surprised him, belting her fist around, knocking him off balance with a punch in the face and a kick to the stomach.  She brought her knee up to his groin and Spike doubled over on the floor.

            Glory darted for the gun, which had landed in the burning kitchen, and rolled on her back, pistol raised.

            She fired once, and the bullet hit the stairs.  The second one caught Spike's foot.

            The third one hit his stomach.

            Suddenly hardly able to breathe, he willed his legs to work, but his right foot was agony.  Glory lay there, looking grubby but triumphant.

            "Three left," she said.  "That should be good enough for the brat upst-"

            And then there was an almighty explosion, and the whole house shuddered and groaned, and Spike instinctively curled into a very painful ball as hot things splattered all over him.

            Hot, wet things.

            He chanced a look up, and saw that where Glory had been was half a pair of legs and some bits of fabric.  The heat had exploded her gun, and her with it.

            "Snap, crackle, and pop," he muttered, and tried to haul himself to his feet.  His foot.  The fire was spreading - the explosion had sent sparks through the hall, the fire gobbling up the wooden floors, crawling up the curtains, the stairs.

            The stairs.

            William.

            When Drusilla had had him chained in that cellar, he'd thought he knew pain.  But it was nothing compared to trying to move with a mashed foot and a bullet in his gut.

            Spike made it up about three steps before the railing collapsed under his weight and he fell back on the floor.  The fire crept over him.

            Buffy finished the paintings rather more quickly than she should have, grabbed her bag and said goodbye to the girls, who grinned and waved her off.  She drove rather too quickly back to Ravello Drive - even Spike's driving was wearing off on her - and jerked to a stop in front of her house.

            Boy, something smelled smoky.

            A window shattered, and her head snapped up.

            Her house smelled smoky.

            Her house was on fire!

            Buffy leapt out of the car and raced in.  The front door was open - or rather, the front door was hanging on its hinges, slowly turning to ashes.

            "William!" she screamed.  "Spike!"

            The stairs were on fire, but the blaze seemed to be worst downstairs.  The kitchen was just a massive inferno.

            She started up the stairs, then caught a glimpse of something below, behind a heap of burning stair railings.

            "_Spike_?"

            Oh God, he wasn't moving.  Buffy made two attempts to get past the fire in her way, but she couldn't.  He was half in the kitchen doorway, half in the hall.  She was cut off - she couldn't get through the living room and she couldn't get down the hall.  "Spike!"

            His eyelids flickered.  "Buffy?"

            "I'm right here.  I - I can't get to you.  Hold on, I'll, er-"

            "Go get Will."

            "What?"  The fire was deafening.

            Spike raised an arm.  In horror, she realised his sleeve was on fire.  "Go get William.  He's upstairs.  Playpen."

            Buffy was torn.  She couldn't leave him.  But neither could she leave Will up there, all on his own, in this heat - he hated too much heat - he'd be so frightened...

            "I'll come back for you," she yelled to Spike, and darted up the stairs.  She made it up four before they started shuddering under her slight weight, and accelerated up the rest, sticking to the wall, away from the flames.

            The staircase started to buckle, and Buffy leapt for the landing just as the steps fell away beneath her.

            "Buffy!" Spike yelled, from somewhere down under the flames.

            She hauled herself up by her arms.  The fire was inching along the landing now.  As she passed her room she realised that half the floor had fallen in.  Oh God, William.  She could hear him crying - screaming, bawling - so at least she knew he was still alive.

            She found him in his playpen, standing up, his little face red with heat and fear and misery, screaming at the highest capacity of his rather strong lungs.

            He wasn't hurt.  He was all right.  Buffy grabbed him to her, snatched up huis teddy bear and his blankie, and wrapped him up tight, the blanket across his face to keep out the smoke.  She glanced out at the landing - no, there was no way they could get out that way.  Shit.

            The bathroom window looked out over the back porch.  Buffy smashed her arm right at it - glass under her skin, now, too - and glanced out.  William was still bawling with fear and she wished she had something to quieten him, keep him still, hold him with, so she could climb out.

            Inspiration struck her.  She snatched the shower curtain from its rail and wrapped it around herself and the baby, making a very bad makeshift sling.  The flames were crackling at the bathroom door now.  The window was the only way out.

            Buffy put one leg through, then her body, and then her other leg.

            The porch roof swayed and wobbled.  The fire was about to break through.  It would never hold her weight.

            Buffy made a hop, skip and a jump and threw herself off the edge of the porch just as it all caved in.  She contracted into a ball and wrapped her arms tight around William as she landed, rolling over and over, away from the house.  Far from the flames.  They were safe.

            She reached the garden bench and quickly pulled William free.  He was still screaming, but as far as she could tell, unharmed.  She kissed his head and ran back to the house.  The whole of the back of it was raging with fire.  If she went in she'd be dead in minutes.  But she had to get to Spike.

            She ran around the front of the house.  The front porch was crackling and unsafe - surely someone else must have noticed the inferno by now? - but she ventured onto it anyway.  The hall was far worse than it had been last time.  She couldn't even see Spike now.

                Eyes streaming with tears that were only partly caused by the smoke, Buffy pushed in a bit further.  She didn't see the falling beam that cracked her on the head until it was too late.


	17. Chapter Sixteen: Don't Ever Leave Me

Chapter Sixteen: Don't ever leave me

            As it happened, several neighbours saw the fire and called 911 at the same time.  Dawn arrived home from school just in time to see Glory's remains being zipped into a bag and loaded into the coroner's van.  Her home was a shell.

            She dropped her bag on the lawn and ran.  "What the hell happened?"  She grabbed the nearest fireman and spun him round.  "What happened?  Was there-"

            "Don't know how it started yet," he said.  "You live here?"

            Dawn nodded, shocked tears coming to her eyes.  "Was there - was there anyone in there?"  She flicked a glance at the coroner's van.  Oh God, not another death.  She truly couldn't bear it.

            "Yes," he said, "they've gone to the hospital."

            "Are they - is anyone-" she couldn't say it.  Tears overwhelmed her and she sat down hard on the dirty ground.

            She wasn't sure who called Xander - someone took her cell phone from her, maybe a policeman - but he turned up, held her in his arms like the darling big brother he practically was, and got her into his car.  He didn't say anything on the way to the hospital, except to tell her that he'd called the gallery and Anya's shop and they were all closing down and coming to the hospital.

            "Anya's closing down?" Dawn sniffed in disbelief.

            "Some things are more important than business."

            "Even to Anya?" Dawn asked, making Xander smile.

            They rushed in and were made to wait.  No one could tell them anything.  Anya arrived, then Willow and Tara, and they all hugged Dawn but no one could think of anything to say.  Xander and Anya had done this all before, with Joyce, and it was too awful to bear.

            Eventually an ER doctor came out and asked, "You family?"

            "Of a sort," Xander said.

            "I'm her sister," Dawn gulped.  "Is she-"

            "A little worse for wear, but she'll be fine."

            "And William?  The baby?"

            "Well, there's nothing wrong with his lungs, that's for sure. We had to sedate him just to quieten him down.  He's fine too."

            Dawn slumped with relief.  "Can I see?"

            They were allowed in to see William who was fast asleep, but he wasn't covered in wires and tubes and bandages, so Dawn figured that he must be pretty much okay.

            "Can I see Buffy?"

            The doctor nodded.  "But don't wake her up."

            Dawn stepped into her sister's room, and saw her hooked up to several machines, drips, swarming with tubes like snakes, covered in bandages.  Tears spilled out over Dawn's face.  She curled up on a chair, and waited for her sister to wake up.

            Buffy's eyes felt like they were full of grit.  Her skin burned and her lungs chafed.  She dragged in a breath, and it hurt.

            She forced her eyes open, and everything was a bit bleary.  She was getting a bit tired of waking up in unfamiliar beds with injuries she didn't remember getting.

            "Buffy?" Dawn said.  "You're awake!"

            "Apparently."  She blinked a few times.  "Hospital?"

            Dawn nodded.  "I'm just gonna fetch the doctor," she said, and was gone before Buffy could ask her anything else.  Spike, she thought.  William she was pretty sure would be okay - if they'd found her and got her to the hospital, they'd have found him too, and he'd have been fine that far away from the blaze.  It was Spike she was most worried about.

            But everyone ignored her, the doctors and nurses who swarmed around calling confusing medical things to each other, telling her to flex this, move that, breathe like this, cough like that.  Buffy learnt that she had a dislocated shoulder - vaguely, she remembered something hurting when she'd landed in the back garden - lacerations on her other arm from the bathroom window, her lungs were full of smoke and she had first degree burns on most parts of her body, and a few second degree ones on her shoulder and arm.

            "Could I get some more morphine?" she asked, and that was the only request they listened to.  Eventually, they all swarmed out, just as they'd swarmed in, and Buffy waved frantically at Dawn to stop someone.  "Hey!  Can you even hear me?"

            The last nurse got caught by Dawn, and Buffy said, slowly and clearly, "What about William and Spike?"

            "William - your son?"

            Buffy nodded.

            "He's just fine.  Would you like me to get him?"

            Buffy nodded a little too eagerly, because the woman vanished in a second, before she could ask about her husband.

            "Dawn," she said instead, "do you know what happened to Spike?"

            "Spike?  I haven't seen him.  I called the hotel but they said he hadn't been there since yesterday-"

            "Wait, it's tomorrow?"

            "Interesting philosophical question," said a wonderfully familiar voice, and she looked up to see Xander lurking in the doorway, hands in pockets.  "How ya doing?"

            Buffy shrugged.  "The drugs are good," she said.

            "As I dimly recall."

            She raised her eyebrows.

            "Hospitalisation last year, broken jaw, anyone remember?"

            "Actually, it was the year before," Dawn told him.

            "I stand corrected."  Xander looked Buffy over slightly shyly.  "Sorry I haven't been around much."

            "Sorry I've been a Buffy-shaped shell."

            They gave each other small smiles, and then the nurse came back in, carrying William, who looked cross.  Buffy reached out with her less-restricted arm and awkwardly held him against her, and he looked up and smiled.  Buffy's heart turned over.

            "Be careful, now," the nurse said.

            "I thought you said he was fine?"

            "Oh, he is.  But you're not."

            Buffy made a face.  "I feel fine."

            "Again, drugs," Xander said.

            "And again," Buffy looked up at them all.  "What.  About.  Spike?"

            "I said I'd tried to call him," Dawn said.  "His cell was off-"

            "He was there," Buffy said, starting to panic.  "In the house.  He was there in the house.  You did get him out, right?"  Her voice rose, her words got quicker.  "You got me out, what about Spike?  He was right there, down the hall-"

            The nurse hurried out to see what she could find out, and Dawn went with her.  Buffy clutched at Xander's hand.  "He was right there," she repeated.  "He was trapped, I couldn't get to him.  I tried to get there but I couldn't and then something hit me and I-" she dissolved into tears.  "Xander, where is he?"

            He put his arms around her.  "He'll turn up," he said.  "Probably outside having a smoke."

            "Smoke bad!"

            "Bad choice of words.  I'm sure he's not gone far."

            Buffy looked up at him.  "No, you're not.  You hate Spike, remember?"

            "But I don't think you do."  He wiped her tears away.  "Dawn told me.  I know things have been a little weird lately.  Seems like he was the only one trying to help you.  Can't hate him for that."

            No, Buffy thought, I can't either.

            Dawn came back in.  "She's checking records.  They found someone else in the house."

            Buffy didn't want to ask.  "Alive?"

            "Well, she's not checking morgue records so - oh," she suddenly remembered.  "But there was, er, I had to ask them about it and they, uh... You remember Glory?"

            Buffy narrowed her eyes.  "Been trying to forget."

            "She was there."

            "In my house?"

            "Hey, our house," Dawn corrected sharply.  "Well, our ashy shell, but anyway.  They found her body.  Bits of it.  Had to identify her by her signet ring..."  She gulped, not sure how Buffy would take the news.

            Xander held Buffy's hand.  They waited.

            "Glory's dead?"

            Dawn nodded.

            "In my house?"

            She nodded again.

            "_Bits of her_?"

            "Like she exploded or something... They're still not sure."

            Buffy looked pale.  "Do they have drugs for queasiness?"

            The nurse came back in.  "What was the name of the man you're looking for?"

            "Spike.  William - uh, Lord Dashwood - no, Lord Spellingdon-"

            "See, she can't remember either, and she's married to him," Dawn said.

            "He's my husband," Buffy said, ignoring her sister.

            "William Dashwood?  We have him."

            "Is he - is he okay?" Buffy asked, frightened to hear the answer.

            The nurse paused.  "He's in Intensive Care.  He was quite badly hurt."

            Buffy clutched at Xander's hand and held Will close.  The tears had come back, but she'd hardly noticed.  "Will he be okay?"

            "He's still unconscious.  We'll know more when he wakes up."

            "When will that be?"

            The nurse's shoulders lifted, then fell gently.  "We can't say.  The sooner the better."

            Buffy whined and bullied and eventually resorted to tears in order to get them to take her to see Spike.  She wasn't allowed in because there was a doctor in with him, but they put her in a wheelchair and took her up to the window on his room.  He looked terrible: burnt and scorched, his hair singed, covered with more tubes than Buffy herself, attached to a respirator.

            "Wait, he can't breathe?"

            "He inhaled a lot of smoke.  It's just to keep his lungs working, get some oxygen pumping round his blood."

            Buffy closed her eyes and tried hard not to cry.  She failed.

            They let her in to see him eventually, told her to talk to him because it might help.  She kept Will with her as much as she was allowed, read to him from baby books, got the newspapers and told Spike what was going on in the world.  She tried not to cry.  She didn't want him to wake up and see her bawling.

            And sometimes, when Will was asleep on her lap, curled up with his (newly washed) teddy bear, looking angelic, she just sat and talked to Spike.  Told him everything about Will: about the birth, about bringing him over to America, taking him to see his grandmother in the cemetery.  About his first steps and baby noises.  About the time he'd eaten a handful of grass and got sick and she'd been terrified it was a dreadful fever, only to be told he'd be fine in a few hours.  About how much he loved his daddy and how alike they were.

            She told him how she'd coped before he came back, how she'd cried, how she'd wished for him and wanted him.  How incredibly grateful she was to him for everything he'd done: the money and the gallery and talking to Dawn and bonding with Will.

            And sometimes she just sobbed, especially when it got late, and the nurse's words rang in her ears.  The sooner the better.

            "Wake up," she half shouted.  "For God's sake.  I just got you back.  You just made me feel okay, you saved me from myself - you keep doing this, Spike, you keep coming back and making me feel like everything's going to be fine, and then you just go away and leave and you're not going to this time!  I won't let you.  It's not fair!"

            He lay there, still.  He was off the respirator now - and that was progress.  He could breathe for himself, which had to be a good thing.

            "Spike, please don't go," Buffy whispered, reaching out and touching his cool hand.  "I need you to be here and love me and love Will.  I love how you love him.  I love you."

            He didn't move.

            "I love you so much," Buffy sniffed, and closed her eyes in an effort to keep the tears in.

            "Can I have that in writing, love?" came a voice, a fabulously familiar, wonderfully warm, delightfully dry voice, and Buffy's eyes flew open.

            "You're awake?"

            His eyebrows flickered.  "Apparently."

            Buffy laughed hoarsely.  "That's just what I said."

            He turned his head a little.  "You're crying."

            "You've been unconscious for a week."

            He looked shocked.  "Bloody hell.  The - there was a fire...?"

            She nodded.  "I tried to get back in but something knocked me out."

            "Are you okay?"  He looked at her arm in its sling.  "What happened?"

            "Had to jump out of the bathroom to get Will out."

            His eyes darted down to the sleeping baby.  "He's all right?"

            "Better than you or me."

            Spike paused.  "Question still stands."

            She laughed again.  "He's fine."

            Spike sighed.  "Bloody hell," he looked down at himself, at the burns and scars and tubes.  "I look like a pile-up on Spaghetti Junction."

            "You look better than you did."

            "I do?  You know, Summers, I'm gonna have to stop telling you I love you.  I always seem to end up in hospital."  A thought occurred to him.  "Is Glory dead?"

            "Dead dead.  They said her gun exploded her."

            "Ha!  Stupid bint."  Another thought.  "Did she _shoot_ me?"

            He looked so outraged that Buffy laughed again.  "Yes.  But they got it out."  She started to wake the sleeping William.  "I should probably go and get a doctor or something."

            "Wait-" Spike held out a hand with a needle inserted in it.  "Buffy.  You aren't still going to divorce me, are you?"

            She nodded.

            He stared.

            Buffy took off her wedding and engagement rings, and handed the latter to Spike.  "You're going to need that," she folded his fingers around it, "for when you get the use of your legs back."

            "You're div - what, what's that about my legs?"

            "Well, one of them.  Third degree burns.  I wouldn't move it too much if I was you."

            She seemed so horribly calm.  Slightly happy, even.  "Is this a joke to you?"

            "No," she said, "no joke.  This marriage never went right from the start.  I want a divorce."

            Speechless, horrified, Spike stared at her some more.

            "And then I want a proposal."

            He blinked.

            "A what?"

            "A proper, down-on-one-knee - but maybe we can waive that clause for now - I-love-you, romantic proposal.  And an engagement party.  And a ceremony with just the people we actually like.  And no title.  I won't be a viscountess even if you pay me."  She gave him a stubborn, so-there look, and Spike suddenly burst out laughing.

            "Summers," he said, "you are going to be the death of me."

Epilogue

            "I can do this," Spike said.  "I've been doing it for bloody years.  I can do it now.  No problem."

            "You want a hand?" Buffy offered.

            "No!  I can manage."

            "Okey dokey."  She watched him.  "You sure?"

            He gave her a murderous look.

            "Fine, whatever."  Trying not to laugh, she stood back and watched her husband very carefully stand up.  And walk.  And stand and grin.

            "See?  I sodding did it!"

            "Well done!  Will only beat you by nine months-" she darted out of the way as he swatted her.

            William came rushing across the lawn and this time it was Spike's turn to flinch out of the way as his son came barrelling towards his still rather painful leg.

            "Watch the leg, kid, watch the-!"

            Buffy grabbed the little boy and hefted him up into her arms.  "Oof, you're heavy.  What did we agree about Daddy's legs?"

            "Ow?" Will suggested.

            "Yep.  'Ow'.  See, do we have a smart kid, or what?"

            "Genius."  Spike looked around the small garden, the trees, the flowers, the back of the house he and Buffy had bought together.  Dawn was living on campus and Willow and Tara's apartment wasn't far away.  They'd decided to sell what was left of the old house and start again - if it worked for marriage, they reasoned, it could work for bricks and mortar.

            Spike's eyes settled on his wheelchair.  He gave it a swift kick with his good leg.  "Poxy sodding thing."

            Buffy let Will down and he ran to his sandbox.  Maybe it was an age thing, but the kid never walked.  He always ran.  "What did it do now?"

            "Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to be stuck in one of those things and never be able to move at all by yourself?"

            Buffy widened her eyes and shook her head.  "Gosh, why, no idea at all.  Must be dreadful to never be able to walk anywhere-"

            "Hey, that was for your own good," he caught her to him, "and besides, you _could_ walk if you wanted to."

            "You never let me!"

            "Can you blame me for being protective?"

            She stuck her chin in the air.  "Yes."

            "Oh, you know you love it," he teased, and Buffy rolled her eyes.  Damn him, he was right.  Again.  "And you know it's gonna get a whole lot worse."

            She groaned.  "We can't have the both of us in wheelchairs.  That would be ridiculous."

            "Hey, I'm never getting back in that thing."

            "Well, you have your crutch-"

            Spike shuddered.  "Ugh."

            Buffy laughed.  "If you fall over and it really hurts, I'm not gonna come a-runnin'."

            Spike pouted.

            "All right, maybe I will."

            "And this time if any of my relatives come round and start arguing-"

            "I can take Darla or Harmony," Buffy protested.  After Glory's rather unglorious death, her mother had left Ethan, and he had died alone in a hospital in England.  They hadn't gone to his funeral, and neither had anyone else.  Spike was officially the earl, but he was considering selling the title.  After all, Buffy and Will were expensive.

            "You are not going to 'take' anyone," he nuzzled her neck.  "Except for me."

            "Just no wrapping me up in cotton wool this time, okay?"

            "Oh go on," he said.  "Please."

            Buffy groaned again as he started kissing her neck.  "I can't believe I let you get me pregnant again!"

                Spike grinned devilishly.  "It's a dirty job," he slid down her shoulder strap, "but someone has to do it..."

_A.N.__  Oh lala, another fic finished!  Hope y'all enjoyed it.  I know I had fun writing it.  Will there be another sequel? …Well, only time will tell! _

_etaknosnhoj___


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